French architect Jean Nouvel wins Pritzker Prize

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - French architect Jean Nouvel has been awarded the 2008 Pritzker Prize, the highest honor for architecture, for his creative experimentation and buildings that speak to their surroundings, the Pritzker jury said on Sunday.

In nearly four decades, Nouvel has designed more than 200 projects in his native France, around Europe, in Asia and the United States, fighting what he calls "generic architecture."

"His inquisitive and agile mind propels him to take risks in each of his projects, which, regardless of varying degrees of success, have greatly expanded the vocabulary of contemporary architecture," the jury said in its citation.

Nouvel, 62, said he was surprised at winning the $100,000 prize this year since he is not inaugurating any major work, but felt "very honored" to join the elite group of 32 Pritzker laureates. He is the second French architect to win the prize.

"I am very happy to be in a club of good friends, like Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid," Nouvel told Reuters by telephone from Paris.

Nouvel gained international prominence with his Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute), built in Paris in 1987 and famous for using adjustable metal lenses on a glass facade to control interior light -- a modern take on traditional Arab latticework.

The layering of light and transparency and opacity are recurring themes in Nouvel's work, most recently in his Tour Verre, a 75-story tower to be built in New York City, and in the Suncal Tower, a high-rise planned for Los Angeles.

Nouvel said he enjoys playing with the reflections of clouds and vegetation on the surfaces of his buildings.

"These games of light and depth of field are here to create a question about the reasons for this building in this world," he said.

'A FORM OF RESISTANCE'

The jury praised Nouvel for making each building different and relevant to its environment and circumstances.

"For Nouvel, in architecture there is is no 'style' a priori," jury chairman Lord Palumbo said. "Rather, a context, interpreted in the broadest sense to include culture, location, program and client, provokes him to develop a different strategy for each project."

The jury made special mention of Nouvel's 2006 Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which created "a dialogue" with the waters of the Mississippi River and the historic mills.

"All my life, I have fought against generic architecture and fought for specific architecture," said Nouvel, whose other buildings include the sleekly curved Dentsu Tower in Tokyo and the gherkin-shaped Torre Agbar in Barcelona.

"When you travel around the world, in the big cities, you see exactly the same buildings," he added. "I think it is important in this globalization to consider that architecture is a form of resistance to this uniformization of the world."

The Pritzker Prize was created by the Chicago-based Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt hotel chain. He will receive the prize on June 2 in Washington.

"When you have the Pritzker Prize, you have another responsibility," Nouvel said. "It is one more reason to do the best building and could, in some situations, probably help to convince people to do better architecture."

(Editing by Eric Auchard and Stacey Joyce)