Two Irish female architects — friends, business partners, teachers and collaborators since meeting in architecture school 40 years ago — have won the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the industry’s most prestigious award. Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin create deeply rational structures “without grand or frivolous gestures,” said the eight-member jury that decides the award, in its Tuesday, March 3, announcement. “They have managed to create buildings that are monumental institutional presences when appropriate, but even so, they are zoned and detailed in such a way as to produce more intimate spaces that create community within.” Farrell and McNamara, of Grafton Architects, are just the fourth and fifth women to win the prize. This is the first time two women have shared the award since it was created in 1979. The other women who have been awarded the prize are the late Zaha Hadid in 2004, Kazuyo Sejima in 2010 (with Ryue Nishizawa) and Carme Pigem in 2017 (with Rafael Aranda and Ramon Vilalta). “Pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession, [Farrell and McNamara] are also beacons to others as they forge their exemplary professional path,” the jury said.

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