ArchDaily is pleased to share, with the permission of The Hyatt Foundation and The Pritzker Architecture Prize, a transcript of Alejandro Aravena's acceptance speech at the April 4, 2016 award ceremony for the 2016 Pritzker Prize presented at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Courtesy of ©The Hyatt Foundation / The Pritzker Architecture Prize

ArchDaily is pleased to share, with the permission of The Hyatt Foundation and The Pritzker Architecture Prize, a transcript of Alejandro Aravena's acceptance speech at the April 4, 2016 award ceremony for the 2016 Pritzker Prize presented at United Nations Headquarters in New York.I can?t start this evening without a mention to Zaha. When we got the news last week, we just couldn?t believe it. Or maybe we didn?t want to believe it. As Rafael Iglesia, an Argentinian architect who also died too early of a heart attack, last year, said once, ?It is always very sad when a person who still has a lot to offer, dies prematurely.? From here we send our condolences to her relatives, friends, and colleagues.Zaha received the Prize in 2004 acknowledging the fact that her work has been a great contribution to architecture. Her work, as well as the work of the other laureates, many of them in this room tonight, is celebrated by this Prize as the highest level that architecture has been able to achieve. The sum of their work builds an incredible body of knowledge that I as a student only dreamt ? and I?m not saying even to p...