For the first time in 14 years, the highest award in Architecture goes to LA based American architect Thomas Mayne
Mr. Mayne is only the eighth American to be honored since the Pritzker was first awarded, in 1979 to Philip Johnson. He is to receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion on May 31 in Chicago's Millennium Park in a ceremony in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, named for the founder of the prize and designed by the architect Frank Gehry, one of the Pritzker jurors, who won in 1989.
The Pritzker jury acknowledged this eclectic quality in its citation. "Mayne's approach toward architecture and his philosophy is not derived from European modernism, Asian influences or even from American precedents of the last century," it says. "He has sought throughout his career to create an original architecture, one that is truly representative of the unique, somewhat rootless, culture of Southern California, especially the architecturally rich city of Los Angeles."
I don't know his stuff well enough for a useful critique, but here's my gut feeling: bleh.