Alejandro Aravena

Alejandro Aravena (born June 22, 1967, Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean architect known for his socially conscious building projects that attempt to break down economic inequality in urban areas. In 2016, he became the first Chilean to win the Pritzker Prize.

Aravena earned a degree in architecture in 1992 from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. Two years later he established his own practice and was involved in a series of building projects for the university, including the mathematics school (1999), the schools of medicine and of architecture (both 2004), and the technology centre, a structure that appears to be two buildings conjoined and thus dubbed the “Siamese Towers” (2005). From 2000 to 2005 Aravena taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. While in Cambridge Aravena partnered with transport engineer Andrés Iacobelli to establish Elemental (in 2001), a “do tank” (as opposed to a “think tank”) for architectural projects that would have a lasting social impact: civic buildings, public space, infrastructure and transportation initiatives, and some private commissions.

Aravena and the Elemental group are known for building “incremental housing,” a form of basic affordable housing in economically vibrant urban locations and realized in part with government subsidies. Called “half a good house” by Aravena, that type of housing gave the most-disenfranchised citizens the opportunity to play a role in improving their economic standing. To build those housing projects, Aravena worked directly with the people for whom the space was designed in order to ensure the success of the end product. Aravena worked on the first such project in 2003–04 in the city of Iquique, in northern Chile. Elemental was tasked with designing housing for 100 families with nominal funds provided by the government. In the end, they developed “half a good house” for each family that provided a concrete frame and foundation, a kitchen, and a bathroom, with gaps between the houses for families to add on rooms as needed and when financially feasible. The result is an ever-changing neighbourhood with ongoing investment—one in which the housing values increase instead of decrease, the opposite situation of most low-income housing projects. Following the Chile earthquake and tsunami in 2010, Aravena was involved in rebuilding the hard-hit town of Constitución, where he built the Villa Verde Housing (2013), also based on the incremental housing design, a seaside promenade (2014), and the Constitución Cultural Centre (2013–15).

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

Architecture: The Built World

Other notable projects by Aravena include a dormitory at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas (2008); the Las Cruces Pilgrim Lookout Point on La Ruta del Peregrino in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Jalisco, Mexico (2010); an incremental housing development in Monterrey, Mexico (2010); the Bicentennial Children’s Park in Santiago (2012); the UC Innovation Centre at the Pontifical Catholic University (2014); and the Writer’s Cabin of Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher, Switzerland (2015).

Aravena received numerous awards, including the 2008 Silver Lion, the Venice Architecture Biennale’s prize for most-promising young architect, and the 2016 Pritzker Prize. He served on the Pritzker Prize jury from 2009 through 2015, and he was appointed director of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.