Architectural intrigue

Rice’s Carlos Jiménez leaves behind intriguing life as Pritzker Prize juror

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Carlos Jiménez never expected a career in architecture would prompt him to hone his skills in misdirection.

Yet his tenure as a juror for the Pritzker Prize, considered the Nobel Prize in architecture, often made it necessary to call upon his inner Houdini.

“We would go on what we called ‘exploratory trips,’ to learn what was happening in the world of architecture, whether in a particular country or in the works of a distinct architect,” said the longtime Rice School of Architecture professor of his worldwide walkabouts. On those trips, hand-picked members of the Pritzker jury, perhaps the most exclusive club in the world of architecture, would view buildings by a range of architects as they considered candidates for future prizes.

The problem was staying under the radar. “It was best to keep our visits quiet,” Jiménez said. “It’s always been difficult; we have to get access to these buildings, and the architects eventually find out. We would often have to send mixed signals so people wouldn’t get too comfortable or expectant, so they wouldn’t think, ‘Oh, they’re coming to see me, therefore. …’ It was at times a bit amusing.

“Sometimes architects would know we were in the area and would make almost embarrassing efforts to be sure we were given the royal treatment — and that didn’t go well with us. The best way is to be incognito, like a restaurant critic.”

The cloak-and-dagger life is only one aspect Jiménez will miss as he steps down from the Pritzker jury, which ends his 11 years as a member of the prestigious panel. Only a few jurists in the 34-year history of the prize have served longer.

The opportunity to view works by — and subsequently become colleagues of — the world’s great architects has enriched Jiménez in many ways, he said. “I started on the jury with a strong desire to learn. It has been an incredible education: the chance to understand firsthand the broader implications of architects in their particular cultures and the world, and I certainly have learned more about the power architecture has to change people’s lives.

Carlos Jiménez

“We looked from those qualities that distinguish a significant work of architecture to what it means to make buildings thathave an impact in people’s lives, whether in the city or in a remote location.”

Jiménez is a renowned practitioner in his own right. At the age of 15, the native of Costa Rica moved with one of his sisters to Nashville, where she pursued an MBA at Vanderbilt University, and he followed her to Houston three years later. He earned his architecture degree at the University of Houston in 1981 and established a practice that has produced buildings not only for Rice University (the Data Center and Library Service Center on South Main Street) but also for the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston (the Central Administration and Junior School building). His diverse clients span residential, institutional and public facilities in the United States, Spain (including the Canary Islands) and France.

Along with teaching and building, Jiménez enjoys taking part in juries, an essential element of the process by which architects, students and their projects are vetted. “It’s a way of retaining and maintaining a dialog,” he said. But joining the Pritzker panel was an honor he never expected.

Founded in 1979 by Jay and Cindy Pritzker of Chicago, scions of the Hyatt Hotel chain, the prize honors a living architect (or, in two cases, a team) whose work demonstrates talent, vision and commitment and makes significant contributionsto humanity, according to the Pritzkers’ statement of purpose.

While members of the family neither take part in nor question the decisions of the jury, they are very careful about choosing jurors. Jiménez never knew he was being interviewed; he was first invited to the 1998 award ceremony at the White House, where he was seated at a table with that year’s laureate, Renzo Piano, the Pritzker family — and President Bill Clinton. (“We talked about movies,” Jiménez said.)

Later that year, he was asked to design an exhibition to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Pritzker Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Then in 1999, I was a finalist for a project in Kansas City,” he recalled. “Two of the jurors, J. Carter Brown and Bill Lacy, were also on the Pritzker jury. After my presentation, Mr. Brown hinted we might not get the project, but then he said, ‘You’re going to hear from us about something else.’ In 2000, I got the invitation. In their way, they had been interviewing me the entire time.

“The family never interferes with the jury’s decisions,” Jiménez said. “They never get involved in nominations. But they do like to have a say on who the juries are and in what cities the events take place.”

As a juror, Jiménez gained access to a world of architectural discussion that he delights in bringing back to his students at Rice. “Gradually, the prize has been learning from each subsequent addition,” he said. “Every year it gets more refined; I would say even more ecumenical, in the sense that it highlights not just an architect, or a particular locality, but a diverse way of thinking about architecture.

“In this way, the world learns more about what architects do and what they provide. Certainly, I learned a lot about the commitment it takes to produce buildings of great quality and great meaning.

“I would often hear students at school or at my office joking, ‘Oh, we know who you’re going to give it to next year,'” he said. “It became a game — but at the end, it’s a serious decision, because we affect a larger culture, which looks at what the award means and what it says.”

In his final act as a juror, Jiménez attended this year’s presentation of the prize to Portugal’s Eduardo Souto de Moura in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., also attended by President Barack Obama.

“All the laureates become possible influences or critical references for students and practitioners alike,” he said. “Not many people in the United States know who Souto de Moura is. But now he’ll be studied.”

The ceremony was also a happy passing of the torch, he said. Former Rice architecture professor Yung Ho Chang, now a practicing architect in China, has taken his place on the jury. “I am not only an admirer but also very fond of Yung Ho, and in fact his wife (Lijia Lu ’97) was one of my students at Rice. So there’s a degree of continuity.”