Where to see prize-winning Chilean architect Aravena’s work

Last week Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena won the Pritzker Prize, one of the discipline’s most prestigious awards.

Santiago building by Alejandro Aravena. Image by John Zacherle / CC BY-SA 2.0

When announcing the honour, the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury Citation stated, “Alejandro Aravena has delivered works of architectural excellence in the fields of private, public and educational commissions both in his home country and abroad…. He has undertaken projects of different scales from single-family houses to large institutional buildings…. He understands materials and construction, but also the importance of poetry and the power of architecture to communicate on many levels.”

And while Aravena’s portfolio is displayed online, here are three places where travellers can examine the 48-year-old’s work in situ.

Las Cruces Lookout Point, Jalisco, Mexico

Jalisco, Mexico. Image by Christian Frausto Bernal / CC BY-SA 2.0

Part of Mexico’s 117-km Pilgrim Road, Las Cruces Lookout Point is “a kind of hollowed stone, bent to rest calmly on the hill side, and whose only purpose is to offer shadows, cross-ventilation and a view over the path the pilgrims walked.”

House of writing, Montricher, Switzerland

The House of Writing is a series of suspended cabins in at the Jan Michalski Foundation’s literary residency program in Montricher, Switzerland.

Bicentennial Children’s Park, Santiago, Chile

For an Aravena work that you can run up, swing on, and slide down, check out Santiago’s Bicentennial Children’s Park. The 1,800-square-meter park includes tree houses, toboggans, and a fence that is a play area in itself.