The announcement of his award was made in a hurry: the organizers of the main international architectural award planned to notify the public about this only in April, but information leaked through some media, which made them hurry.
Soutou de Moura began his architectural career at the office of Alvaro Siza, and in 1980 he opened his own studio, but continued to collaborate with Siza, remaining in a sense in the shadow of this master. He became widely known for the project of a football stadium in Braga, which was built for the 2004 European Football Championship: according to the decision, this is the most original arena of that championship - in particular, on one side, the stadium is adjacent to a granite cliff, which was created by a series of directed explosions.
But with the receipt of the Pritzker Prize, Eduard Soutou de Moura finally inscribed his name in the history of architecture, although he did so after his father-in-law, who received this award in 1992. At the same time, Soutou de Moura works more on the modest scale of single-family houses, where he appears. attention to quality - design, materials, social and environmental aspects. In his opinion, there is no “ecological”, “smart” or “fascist” (which is no less important for Portugal) architecture - it can only be bad and good.
As one of the leading representatives of the Porto school of architecture, he differs from its leader Siza in his freer use of color and form, which, however, never cross the line between seriousness and deliberately “picturesque”. It can be assumed that the Pritzker Prize will give the 58-year-old architect the opportunity to work in more diverse "genres" and scales than until now, as well as diversify the geography of his buildings (so far most of them are in Portugal).
Prior to the leak, the Pritzker Foundation, the organizers of the award, planned to present it to the laureate on June 2, 2011 at the Neoclassical Hall. Andrew Mellon in Washington, but this date may now change. The amount of the award is, as in previous years, $ 100,000.
