The Prize Committee for Arts (Architecture) has unanimously decided that the Prize for 1992 be equally divided among:
Frank O. Gehry
Santa Monica, California, USA
Creating architecture as art and sculpture, he embodies the fight for liberation destroying dogma, principle and method.
Jorn Utzon
Aalsgaarde, Denmark
His architecture, rooted in deep reading of human cultures, has given shape to processes of ritual and assembly in forms of haunting presence.
Denys Lasdun
London, United Kingdom
With architecture as a social art, he enhances the relations between people through primary architectural means that far transcend style.
Although each deserves the prize alone, it was felt that their creative stature would be identified best through comparison; even through the actual contrast of diverse and opposite qualities. Three men, three leaders, three permanent references in the wavering research of modern architecture. Humanly, psychologically and in their forms, they are very different. But they have one thing in common: the consistency of looking for ever
extended fields of freedom.
Frank O. Gehry receives and transforms stimuli, but he also provokes them. All the world looks at him because, among many qualities, he has those of certitude and conflict. Gehry is there to destroy dogma, principle and method. Rather than freedom, he embodies the fight for liberation, no matter what it costs in terms of social relations or professional interest. Doing or undoing, constructivism or deconstructivism: his behaviour is an example, a light for all.
Jorn Utzon is a master of the so called 'Third Generation' of modern architects: with buildings such as the Sydney Opera House or the Bagsvaerd Church, he has given shape to the processes of ritual and assembly in forms of haunting presence. While personal in character, his architecture is rooted into deep reading of human cultures and a quest for 'constants'; he strives for certain quality of universality. Utzon is also one of the few modern architects to have grappled successfully with the whole range of building tasks from the scale of the individual dwelling, through that of the community to that of the civic or religious monument.
Sir Denys Lasdun has produced an architecture of extraordinary consistency, in which each building is thought of as a piece of a larger urban landscape. This is an oeuvre which demonstrates how it is possible to achieve individuality while also extending lessons from nature and tradition. With works such as the Royal College of Physicians, the University of East Anglia or the project for the Hurva Synagogue, Lasdun has been able to enhance and ennoble the relations between people through primary architectural means that far transcend style.
Three architects, three architectural languages, three different positions in space, time and architectural tradition - but three reminders as well in a period which suffers from the facile reuse of images, that the art of architecture can aspire to qualities existing well beyond the range of passing fashion - qualities that enhance use, transform construction, intensify meaning and liberate the mind.