Herzog & de Meuron Awarded 2007 Praemium Imperiale Award

The Swiss architect team “Herzog & de Meuron” opened their joint office in their hometown Basel in 1978. The two architects have known each other since childhood, and both studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. They claimed international attention with domestic projects such as the Ricola Storage Building (1987) and the Central Signal Box (1999). Their international projects include the conversion of a former power station into the Tate Modern (2000) in London and the Prada Aoyama Epicenter (2003) in Tokyo. In 2001, the team won the Pritzker Prize and were noted for “refining traditions of modernism to elemental simplicity, while transforming materials and surfaces through the exploration of new treatments and techniques.” Herzog and de Meuron, both avid soccer fans, designed the soccer stadium in Basel and the World Cup soccer stadium Allianz Arena (2005) in Munich. The Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is now under construction.

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