The Japan Art Association has selected Daniel Libeskind as the 2026 architecture laureate of the Praemium Imperiale, the international arts prize often likened to a Nobel award for creative disciplines. The result, covering the 37th edition of the prize, was announced on September 8 in a coordinated release across Tokyo, Paris, Rome, Berlin, New York and London.
Libeskind, principal design architect at Studio Libeskind, will collect the award at a ceremony in Tokyo on October 28. The laureate receives a payment of 15 million yen, worth roughly £70,000, along with a diploma and a medal.
Who is Daniel Libeskind
Libeskind was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1946 and left for the United States while still a teenager, eventually settling with his family in the Bronx. Before he turned to buildings, music absorbed much of his early training, an influence he has said continues to inform how he thinks about rhythm and spatial structure. He took his degree at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York in 1970, then pursued further study in architectural history and theory at the University of Essex.
His reputation was built on a competition win for the Jewish Museum Berlin, secured in 1989; the building itself opened in 2001 and introduced the fractured, angular vocabulary that has defined his practice since. He went on to design the Bundeswehr Museum of Military History, completed in 2011, and in 2003 was named master planner for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, a commission that prompted his studio to relocate its main office to New York.
The Japan Art Association’s citation described him as an architect “celebrated for his ability to evoke cultural memory through emotionally resonant and original architecture,” adding that he is “guided by a deep passion for music, philosophy, and literature.” It also pointed to his role beyond individual buildings, noting that he is “a prominent voice in the field, frequently speaking at universities and professional conferences on the art and impact of architecture,” and that his output has helped shape “contemporary architectural discourse and influencing the evolution of cities and cultural spaces.”
Recent and ongoing Studio Libeskind projects
Newer work from the practice includes the Maggie’s Centre at the Royal Free hospital in London and a residential project known as the Atrium at Sumner in Brooklyn. Libeskind is currently developing the Albert Einstein Discovery Center in Ulm, Germany, the physicist’s birthplace, a project intended to present his scientific legacy alongside his pacifist convictions. He now divides his time between New York and Berlin and continues to run the studio with his wife and business partner, Nina Libeskind. His earlier honours include the Goethe Medal, the Hiroshima Art Prize, the Dresden Peace Prize and the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma.
The Praemium Imperiale and this year’s other winners
The Praemium Imperiale was founded in 1988 to mark the centenary of the Japan Art Association and to carry forward a wish attributed to the late Prince Takamatsu, quoted by the organisers as wanting “to contribute to the enhancement and promotion of the cultures and arts of the world.” Because it spans painting, sculpture, architecture, music and theatre or film, categories the Nobel Prizes do not cover, it is frequently described as an arts counterpart to that award. Prince Hitachi, the Association’s honorary patron, is expected to preside over the October ceremony.
Libeskind joins four other 2026 laureates: actor Cate Blanchett in theatre and film, conductor Herbert Blomstedt in music, sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, and painter Jenny Holzer. Lord Patten of Barnes, one of the prize’s international advisers in the UK, said of the group: “This year’s laureates share an immense passion for their respective craft as well as the land and people that inspire their art,” adding that collectively “their body of work celebrates the beauty and transformative power of art for the individual and the society.”
Selections are drawn up by nomination committees under advisers who currently include Lord Patten, former Italian prime minister Lamberto Dini, former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Goethe-Institut president Klaus-Dieter Lehmann and former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, before being finalised by Japan Art Association committees and its board of trustees. Separately, the Association gave its 2026 Grant for Young Artists to La Source Garouste, a children’s art initiative founded in 1991 by artists Gérard and Élizabeth Garouste.
Libeskind’s win extends a list of architecture laureates that includes Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas, SANAA, Shigeru Ban, Diébédo Francis Kéré and, most recently, Eduardo Souto de Moura. The formal presentation of this year’s awards takes place in Tokyo on October 28.
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