THE Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the highest honor in the field, has been awarded to British architect and urban planner David Alan Chipperfield, who was hailed for 'a commitment to an architecture of understated but transformative civic presence.'

Pritzker Prize organizers called Chipperfield's work — more than 100 projects over four decades ranging from cultural, civic and academic buildings to urban planning to residences, and including a recent addition to Berlin's famed Museum Island complex — 'subtle yet powerful, subdued yet elegant.'