This award has been awarded since 1975 by the Minister of Culture of the Republic to architects for a set of works. In the case of the Lacaton & Vassal duet, the jury of the award noted their desire to work with a minimum of funds, for the widest audience - with constant quality, originality, attention to the needs of their "real" customers: students, residents of social housing complexes, museum visitors.
The architects emphasize that a limited budget helps them find the optimal solution for a particular project, to abandon everything superfluous, leaving only what is necessary - in terms of both function and aesthetics.
The prize, awarded every two years, includes a cash prize of € 10,000.
It is one of the most democratic awards in the architectural field in the world: in order to select four finalists, 2,000 architects, developers, journalists, curators from France and other European countries are invited to compile their list of four, in their opinion, the most worthy. Then the names that were most often found in the submitted questionnaires are considered by the jury headed by the Minister of Culture. This year, in addition to Christine Albanel, it included, among others, the laureates of previous years Rudy Ricciotti and Jean Nouvel, as well as the director of the Center Pompidou Alain Seban and the head of the French Institute of Architecture (Ifa) Francis Rambert.
The rivals of Lacaton & Vassal this year were Patrick Bouchen, Jacques Ferrier and Françoise-Helene Jourda.
