The Paris-based duo has amassed a portfolio defined by openness, adaptive reuse, and human enrichment Words by: Will Speros Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of the Parisian architecture firm Lacaton & Vassal have been named the 2021 Pritzker Prize laureates. Over more than 40 years, the pair has garnered recognition for their private and social housing projects, as well as cultural and academic institutions throughout Europe and West Africa. The firm’s portfolio reflects an emphasis on quality of life through open use and abundant space, often in urban environments. “Good architecture is open—open to life, open to enhance the freedom of anyone, where anyone can do what they need to do,” Lacaton says. “It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful, and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it.”