Chilean Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

"I want to start by thanking architecture itself." With these words, Chilean architect Smiljan Radić, the 55th laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, opened his acceptance speech in Mexico City. Reflecting on what he calls "distractions," he thanked the many encounters that have accompanied him throughout his life and practice: from art, cities, materials, structures, and compositions to landscapes, poetry, nature, forms, stories, and memories. He spoke about what, within them, provoked him and the marks they left on his architectural imagination.

From the black light in Chandigarh and the interior of San Salvatore in Rialto, to the heaps of stone on the Croatian island of Brač; from the fallen columns of the Temple of Poseidon and the abandoned shires scattered across Chile, to People Meet in Architecture, Kazuyo Sejima's 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, the traveling Chilean circus, and the silence of the water within the cisterns of Hagia Sophia, his speech unfolded as a tribute to moments, encounters, and distractions. A collage of memories and impressions that, together, shaped the architect he became.

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On March 12, the Chilean architect of Croatian descent, Smiljan Radić Clarke, was awarded the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The jury highlighted his "unorthodox approach to design," which "may initially appear unusual, unexpected, even rebellious; yet, far from producing alienation or estrangement, his anti-canonical stance feels fresh and unprecedented. It conveys the unmistakable sensation of encountering something new." This recognition will be celebrated with the annual Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Lecture and Panel Discussion, to be held in Mexico City at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), at the Faculty of Architecture's Teatro Estefanía Chávez, on May 12, 2026.

The 2026 Pritzker Price Award has been awarded this year to the Chilean architect of Croatian descent, Smiljan Radić Clarke. Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1965, his practice evokes a geography of extremes, shaped by the tectonic tension between the staggering weight of the Andes and the seismic instability of the territory. After graduating from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and pursuing further studies in aesthetics in Venice, Smiljan Radić Clarke established his base in Santiago. From there, he has developed one of the most singular visions in contemporary architecture. His work privileges the intensity of the moment through a fragile architecture. Within it, the building operates as a temporary and tactile refuge that places the spectator in a state of aesthetic uncertainty, oscillating between ancestral ruin and avant-garde artefact.

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Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke has been announced as the laureate of the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize, regarded as one of the highest honors in the field of architecture. The award recognizes Radić for a body of work that explores architecture through material experimentation, spatial perception, and a careful engagement with landscape and context. Born in Santiago, Chile, where he continues to live and work, Radić leads the practice Smiljan Radić Clarke, established in 1995. As the second Chilean to receive the prize, after Alejandro Aravena in 2016, he joins a distinguished list of previous laureates, including Liu Jiakun in 2025, Riken Yamamoto in 2024, David Chipperfield in 2023, and Diébédo Francis Kéré in 2022.

Radić's architecture operates within a territory where the phenomenological experience of space precedes explanation. His buildings often appear quiet, elemental, and resistant to easy verbal interpretation, encouraging visitors to experience them through movement, atmosphere, and perception rather than through formal expression. 

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Between September 25 and October 5, 2025, the XXIII Chilean Architecture and Urbanism Biennial took place in Santiago. Under the title "DOUBLE EXPOSURE: (re)program · (re)adapt · (re)construct," the event was organized around the idea of "understanding architecture not as the production of the new, but as the ability to reactivate what already exists." Based on this premise, the curatorial team, composed of Ángela Carvajal and Sebastián López (Anagramma Arquitectes) together with Óscar Aceves, conceived a circuit of eight venues located in downtown Santiago. Their goal was to revive and reclaim urban spaces through a series of free public activities that drew around 70,000 visitors. Among the reactivated sites, the ruins of the San Francisco de Borja Church stood out. Burned during the social outburst of October 2019, the site hosted a temporary pavilion that served as a venue for talks, readings, art installations, discussions, and community events.

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The residential project Villa San Luis, originally named Villa Compañero Ministro Carlos Cortés, was built between 1971 and 1972 on land that today lies in one of the highest-income areas of Santiago, Chile. Initially designed as an urban center for 60,000 middle-income residents, with staggered buildings and a civic center covering 3.4 of its 50 hectares, the project was redefined in the 1970s to accommodate the unhoused population in the eastern sector of the Chilean capital. The process was not without conflict. During the dictatorship, the new residents of the complex were evicted, and the land was acquired by the military. From then on, the complex entered a process of reappropriation and resignification that now appears to be reaching a new milestone: the conversion of one of its buildings into a memorial site and museum, through a project by UMWELT and Plan Común.

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Out of 45 participating submissions for Chile's Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, the winning proposal has been recently announced. 'Reflective Intelligences,' the curatorial project by Serena Dambrosio, architect, researcher, and lecturer at Universidad Diego Portales; Nicolás Díaz Bejarano, architect, researcher, lecturer, and PhD candidate in Architecture and Urban Studies at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; and Linda Schilling Cuellar, architect, urban designer,educator and doctoral candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University.

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The use of wood in Chilean house construction reflects the utilization of a renewable resource available in the country. Moreover, it can be an extremely sustainable material when produced and processed under certain conditions, as it can have a very low carbon footprint. It is characterized by its warmth, resistance, and durability as a construction system.

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It is fascinating to delve into the practice of Iván Bravo, firstly because the path taken towards his architectural work immerses us in a vast creative universe through the architect's interest and curiosity in various tangential disciplines directly reflected in his built work. A constant reflection on the methodology of the making, the processes, the pieces, the design, and the materiality converges into a noble and honest architecture.

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Videos

While exploring the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, the ArchDaily team had a chance to engage in conversation with several curators of the national pavilions, along with Lesley Lokko, the curator of the entire exhibition. The discussions delved into the unique character of this year’s edition focused on an understanding of Africa as a “Laboratory of the Future.” Through this lens, the biennale became “a healing experience,” in the words of Lesley Lokko, reinterpreting and deconstructing the meaning behind ideas such as decolonization, decarbonization, resource management, or finding the hidden potential in vernacular forms of practice.

Following Lokko’s curatorial direction, the exhibitions presented at the national pavilions explored the specific conditions of their territories, striving to uncover and highlight the unique challenges and opportunities faced by their local cultural landscapes. During the interviews, the curators opened up in regard to their personal inspirations and the drive behind the choice of program, the messages embedded in the displays, and their hopes for the future of the profession.

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The Chilean architectural practice UMWELT, together with the landscape architecture office LANDMRX and the renowned Mexican firm PRODUCTORA, have won first place in the competition for the transformation of the former Correos de Chile (Chilean Postal Service) building located in Estación Central, Santiago. In 2021, EFE (Chile's State Railway Company) acquired the property to convert it into their new corporate headquarters, where the company's employees will work in interaction with the nearby railway operations.

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Located in the city of Viña del Mar, Chile, the Conjunto Habitacional 7 Hermanas (7 Sisters Housing Complex) stands out among the urban landscape of Viña del Mar for its architectural qualities, colors, materials, and magnitude. When you look up, you can see between the leafy ravine that overlooks the Quinta Vergara urban park, the group of buildings located in the Forestal sector, which take over the slope and the plateau of the hill, crowning itself as one of the most important works of modern architecture in the region of Valparaíso.

Chilean architecture has a strong relation to the unique geography and climate of the country. Germán del Sol is recognized as one of the most prolific Chilean architects working with these demanding conditions, with projects across the country that enhance and rediscover the natural landscape, through architecture that uses natural materials, local techniques, and a profound sense of the place.

Photographer and filmmaker Pablo Casals-Aguirre revisits the Remota Lodge in Patagonia, one of the most celebrated projects by Germán del Sol, in a video that is able to transmit not only the static relationship with nature, but also the experience of inhabiting the landscape from the building.

The wild landscape of the Patagonian plains covers also the roofs of the buildings. The roofs concrete slabs are coated with the same synthetic asphalt membrane and a carpet of wild grasses 2 feet high [...] The ever changing light of Patagonia enters the building through the sequence of vertical cuts of the windowpanes. Then it surrounds big concrete or wooden pillars, and slides along the ceilings wooden trellises that hang well under the concrete slab. - Germán del Sol

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Traditionally, Chilean housing has used the kitchen as a central space in their designs, from which all other venues are deployed. Being a focal point within each project, it's important to deepen its design and occupy every available square meter in favor of its effective use. Today, we review 7 kitchens designed specifically in Chilean homes; each one with particular details and distributions, and different combinations of materials, furniture, and equipment.