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2025 Praemium Imperiale laureate Eduardo Souto de Moura. Photo: Shun Kambe, image courtesy The Japan Art Association
Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura has been honored with the prestigious Praemium Imperiale prize in the Architecture category.
Awarded by the Japan Art Association in its thirty-sixth year, the accolade also recognized four other recipients in their respective fields: Peter Doig (UK) for Painting, Marina Abramović (Serbia) for Sculpture, András Schiff (UK) for Music, and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Belgium) for Theater & Film.
Other Praemium Imperiale Architecture laureates in recent years have included Shigeru Ban, Diébédo Francis Kéré, SANAA founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, Glenn Murcutt, and Tod Williams & Billie Tsien.
Born in 1952 in Porto, Portugal, Souto de Moura emerged as a protégé of Álvaro Siza (himself a 1998 Praemium Imperiale laureate), founded his own firm in 1980, and gained international recognition for stand-out projects like the Pousada Mosteiro de Amares (1997), the Estádio Municipal de Braga (2003), and the Paula Rego Museum (2009).
Notable award wins, including the Pritzker Prize in 2011, a Venice Biennale Golden Lion in 2018, and the 2019 Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize, as well as recent commissions to design watches for Lebond and Cauny, have cemented Souto de Moura’s place as a leading figure in Portuguese and global architecture.