The character arc of Anne Lacaton
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 2 August 1955 in Saint-Pardoux-la-Riviere in the Dordogne. Between then and now sit an architecture degree at Bordeaux and a masters in urban planning in 1984, repeated visits to Jean-Philippe Vassal in Niger and a first joint building that was a straw hut, a practice formed in 1987, a move to Paris in 2000, a bare bones reclamation of the Palais de Tokyo in 2001, a 1957 housing tower reopened rather than demolished from 2005, the EU Mies Award in 2019 for Grand Parc Bordeaux, professorships across Europe and America, and the Pritzker Prize in 2021. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Anne Lacaton?
It began with a straw hut. It ended at the Pritzker.
She grew up in the Dordogne, took her architecture degree at the school in Bordeaux and a masters in urban planning at the University of Bordeaux in 1984. She used to visit Jean-Philippe Vassal in Niger, where he was working as an architect and town planner, and the first thing the two of them built together was a straw hut.
That is not a charming detail, it is the whole method in miniature. They formed Lacaton and Vassal in 1987, based in Bordeaux and then in Paris from 2000, and the work has always been about reduced cost construction and about getting more space for less money. Many of their projects are hybrids of a contemporary idea and much more varied techniques, which upsets the standard practices of building contractors, and upsetting them is rather the point.
In 2001 they finished the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, a bare bones reclamation of an art deco building by the Seine rather than a restoration of it. It was shortlisted for the EU Mies Award in 2003.
The project that made the argument unarguable came in 2005, when they and Frederic Druot were chosen to reshape the Tour Bois le Pretre, a seventeen storey housing tower on the northern edge of Paris built to a 1957 design. The obvious move was demolition. Instead they cut away most of the thick facade panels and put balconies and large sliding windows in their place, so daylight reached the flats. The flats were enlarged and opened up, and new plumbing, bathrooms, ventilation and wiring went in. It was runner up for the Design Museum Design of the Year in 2013 and top of the architecture category. With Druot they turned that into a programme called Plus, for upgrading old social housing rather than clearing it.
They have also built the architecture school in Nantes, the FRAC art collection building in Dunkirk, a house at Cap Ferret, and Grand Parc Bordeaux with Druot and Christophe Hutin, which won the EU Mies Award in 2019 for the best contemporary architecture in Europe. She has been a visiting professor in Madrid, Lausanne, Florida, Buffalo, Paris and at Harvard, and was appointed associate professor at ETH Zurich in 2017. Her teaching is explicit about the politics of the thing: buildings for human use rather than iconic display, designed with the people who will live in them. In 2021 she and Vassal were jointly awarded the Pritzker Prize.
The moments
Anne Lacaton's timeline.
The 1950s
Born in the Dordogne
Everyday. A village in the Dordogne.
The 1980s
Bordeaux, and urban planning
Milestone, and it changed everything. Architecture, and then the planning as well.
A straw hut in Niger
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first thing they ever built together was made of straw.
Lacaton and Vassal
Milestone, and it changed everything. A practice built on doing it for less.
The 1990s
A young talent prize
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Two French prizes, eight years apart.
The 2000s
The practice moves to Paris
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Out of the provinces, thirteen years in.
The Palais de Tokyo
Milestone, and it changed everything. They stripped a museum back rather than restoring it.
Knock it down, or open it up
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: keep the building, taken, or take it down and start again. It became the Plus programme, then Grand Parc Bordeaux, then the EU Mies Award, then the Pritzker.
The tower they did not demolish
Milestone, and it changed everything. The obvious answer was demolition. They opened it to the light instead.
The Erich Schelling Award
Milestone. Germany noticed before France did.
The 2010s
Plus
Milestone, and it changed everything. One tower became a programme, and then a book.
Design of the Year runner up
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Top of the architecture category, for not knocking something down.
A chair at ETH Zurich
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She taught it as a political argument, because it is one.
The EU Mies Award
Milestone, and it changed everything. Best building in Europe, and it was already there.
The 2020s
The Pritzker Prize
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty four years after the straw hut.
The Tour Bois le Pretre is still standing with its new balconies and the families still in it, which was the entire argument. What she set moving is a shift in what counts as ambitious in architecture, from the building nobody has made before to the building somebody was about to knock down.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
Hers turned on a straw hut in Niger, which is an unpromising place for a Pritzker career to start. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Anne Lacaton: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Anne Lacaton's character arc?
What is Lacaton and Vassal, the practice of Anne Lacaton?
What did Anne Lacaton do to the Tour Bois le Pretre?
Did Anne Lacaton win the Pritzker Prize?
What is the Anne Lacaton project called Plus?
Where has Anne Lacaton taught?
Where does this timeline of Anne Lacaton's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Anne Lacaton, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- The Pritzker Architecture Prize citation for Lacaton and Vassal, 2021.
- The EU Mies Award 2019 citation for Grand Parc Bordeaux.
- Plus, the published work on upgrading social housing, with Frederic Druot.