Portuguese architect honoured for his sculptural buildings and poetic approach to material and place.

Buildings.
Eduardo Souto de Moura at his office in Porto, Portugal, April 2025 (photo: Shun Kambe / The Japan Art Association).

Eduardo Souto de Moura has been announced as the Architecture Laureate of the 2025 Praemium Imperiale Awards. Known for his refined use of granite, marble, concrete and timber, the Portuguese architect is widely celebrated for mixing monumentality with quiet restraint, creating architecture that is at once grounded in context.

Among his most recognised works are the Braga Stadium (2004), dramatically carved into a former quarry; the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego (2008), with its distinctive terracotta towers; and São Lourenço do Barrocal (2017), a sensitive conversion of a historic Portuguese farming village into a hotel and winery. The latter continues a longstanding interest in preservation and transformation, echoing earlier restoration works such as the Convento das Bernardas (2012) in Tavira.

Buildings.
Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, Cascais, Portugal, 2008 (photo: Luis Ferreira Alves).

Born in Porto in 1952, Souto de Moura began his career working with Álvaro Siza before establishing his own practice in 1980. Over more than four decades, he has developed an approach that draws from vernacular architecture, modernist rigour and a deep engagement with place. His built work is internationally admired for its clarity of form, spatial discipline and material richness.

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With Alvaro Siza, left (photo: Juan Rodriguez / Souto de Moura Arquitectos)

In 2011, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, followed by the Wolf Prize in 2013, the Golden Lion for best project at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, and the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in 2019. He co-designed the Serpentine Pavilion in 2005 with Álvaro Siza and participated in the Royal Academy’s Sensing Spaces exhibition in 2014.

Buildings.
Braga Stadium, Portugal, 2004 (photo: Shun Kambe / The Japan Art Association).

Also announced at Japan House was the recipient of the 2025 Grant for Young Artists which went to the National Youth Theatre. Founded in London in 1956, the institutions HQ was recently redesigned by DSDHA to be more accessible and prepared for potential growth in the decades to come.

The Praemium Imperiale Awards are presented annually by the Japan Art Association in the categories of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music and Theatre/Film. Each Laureate receives 15 million Yen (c. £77,000). The awards are given under the honorary patronage of His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, younger brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan.

Other recipients of the 2025 awards include Marina Abramović (Sculpture), Peter Doig (Painting), Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Theatre/Film), and Sir András Schiff (Music). Previous Architecture Laureates include Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, David Chipperfield, Zaha Hadid, Francis Kéré and Shigeru Ban.