The 2026 Jury (by alphabetical order)
Frou Akalay
Marie-Ange Brayer
Edwin Chan
Aleksandar Jankoviċ
Shelley McNamara
Wolf D. Prix
Frou Akalay is Managing Director of the Archimedia Group and Editor-in-Chief of the architecture magazine A+E. After graduating with a degree in communication from the International Institute of Communication in Paris, Frou began her career at Fleishman Hillard as an Account Executive. Driven by a deep passion for architecture and design, she then joined the Archimedia Group, a pioneer in architecture and building media in Morocco, founded by her father, Fouad Akalay. Since 2012, Frou has co-directed the Archimedia Group with determination, continuing her father’s legacy until his passing on June 13, 2024, while also instilling her own vision for the group’s future. She is also involved in organizing Casablanca Design Week, a key event for Moroccan design professionals.
As editor-in-chief of the architecture magazine A+E, she works to document, promote, and disseminate contemporary architectural creation in Morocco. Committed to fostering new generations of designers, she co-founded the Young Moroccan Architecture Awards (YMAA) in 2020, a national competition celebrating the excellence, innovation, and creativity of young Moroccan architects. In 2025, she launched the Moroccan Interior Design Awards (MIDA), a groundbreaking event dedicated to celebrating Moroccan interior design, aiming to discover and support the professionals shaping the spaces of tomorrow. Alongside her activities in media and events, Frou teaches at the Casablanca School of Architecture and at the International University of Rabat.
Photo © Archimedia
Marie-Ange Brayer is a curator and head of the Design and Industrial Propective Department at the National Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, in Paris (since 2014). From 1996 to 2014, she was director of the Frac Centre-Val de Loire in Orléans, where she developed a collection of experimental architecture. She organizes numerous solo and group exhibitions. The Frac Centre collection is widely exhibited regionally and internationally. In 1999, Marie-Ange co-founded, with Frédéric Migayrou, ArchiLab, the Orléans International Architecture Encounters, which, between 1999 and 2013, brought together more than three hundred international architects of a new generation to discuss the challenges of digital technologies through exhibitions and conferences.
In 2002, she co-curated, with Béatrice Simonot, the French Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. At the Centre Pompidou, Marie-Ange curated “Global Tools” (2016), “Imprimer le monde” (2017), “Ross Lovegrove. Convergence” (2017), “La Fabrique du vivant” (2019), and “Réseaux-mondes” (2022), “Ettore Sottsass, l’objet magique” (2021) and “L’enfance du design. Un siècle de design pour enfant” (2024). Her research focuses on a cross-disciplinary approach to creation, encompassing art, design, and architecture, and addresses environmental and technological challenges within the field of design. In 2025, she edited the issue of the Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne on the “Centre de Création industrielle (CCI), 1969-1992,” where she addressed the question of the design object and exhibition and published on the intelligence of living beings in the age of AI. Also in 2025, she published the book La maquette, un objet modèle ? Entre art et architecture (HYX), which examines the role of the architectural model through the artistic and architectural movements of the 20th century, up to the digital age.
Photo © Géraldine Aresteanu
Edwin Chan is the founder of the Los Angeles-based architecture and design office EC3. Established in 2013, the cross-disciplinary practice is committed to empower architecture’s role in supporting arts and culture and fostering a deeper connection between the built and natural environments.
With 25+ years of experience in projects of diverse scales and programs, he has led a team of over one hundred architects, overseeing the design, coordination, and execution of three million square feet of construction across four continents. Before founding EC3, Edwin was a Design Partner at Gehry Partners in Los Angeles from 1988 to 2012. During this time, he played an instrumental role in providing creative direction in the firm’s most renowned projects. Edwin’s commitment to designing buildings for the arts culminated with the Fondation Louis Vuitton for Creation in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Edwin’s final museum projects at Gehry Partners were the transformation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and the master plan for the Luma Foundation at the Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France, which opened in the summer of 2021.
Edwin is one of seven American architects pre-selected for the Grand Paris project. He has taught at the Harvard GSD, USC, and UCLA; and was appointed the Howard Friedman Visiting Professor of Architectural Practice at the University of California at Berkeley in 2012. . Edwin has received many awards and distinctions, including the Wheelwright Fellowship from Harvard GSD, a grant from the Graham Foundation for the Arts, and the honor of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture. He is a licensed architect in California, Texas, and New York.
Edwin is fluent in English, Chinese (Cantonese), and French and has traveled to all seven continents.
Aleksandar Jankoviċ: Since founding his first practice in Paris in 2006, he has distinguished himself through many competitions and an unceasing spirit of invention – a field of exploration and a relentless quest for new architectural expression, crafting for each project a singular identity. This pursuit has earned him several prestigious honors, among them the “40 under 40 – European Emerging Architects“ distinction, the “Leonardo Prize“ for young architects, and the silver medal of the “Salon des Artistes Français“. These recognitions gave him the momentum, encouraging an architectural journey rooted in innovation. He is the originator of “Project Belgrade”, a project brought to prominence notably through the “Transition:ism” pavilion, where he served as curator, presented at the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006. Recipient of the “Ermanno Piano” Prize in 2005, he worked within the Renzo Piano Building Workshop on LACMA. before moving on to Ateliers Jean Nouvel, contributing to the design of the grand concert hall of the Philharmonie de Paris (2007–2015). At the 2009 ceremony of the Grand Prix - Académie Française des Beaux-Arts, an award he received, Claude Parent described his architectural gesture as that of a “sculptor of an empty space”. Since then, these words have followed him like a shadow: reminding him, nudging, teasing - granting him the freedom to maintain an ever bolder dialogue with space, shaping the void. In 2018, he founded “Atelier Jankovic de Thy” with Alexa de Thy, where their cultural dualities meet and enrich one another. Together, they share the energy and wonder of continual discovery, nurturing a practice guided by passion and patience, sustained by the - perhaps naïve - hope of bringing an ideal space into being… a utopia.
Recently, the Atelier Jankoviċ de Thy was honored with the Claude Parent Prize. This homage to Mr. Parent is far more than an award for their practice…, it is an invitation to pause, to step back, to reflect, a moment ripe for deeper introspection in view of a future articulation of their
architectural gesture.
Shelley McNamara co-founded Grafton Architects with Yvonne Farrell in 1978, having graduated from University College Dublin in 1974. Grafton Architects have become one of the world’s largest architecture studios in forty years. She is a Fellow of the RIAI, an International Honorary Fellow of the RIBA, and an elected member of Aosdána, the eminent Irish Art organisation. In 2018, Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell were the Curators of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Their manifesto "Freespace" was the title of the Biennale. Notable projects include The Town House Building, Kingston University London; The School of Economics for the University of Toulouse 1 Capitol; Institut Mines Télécom University Building, Paris Saclay, The Marshall Institute, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for the London School of Economics; Headquarters for Electricity Supply Board (ESB) with OMP architects in Dublin. In 2019, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) awarded the RIAI James Gandon Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Architecture to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, of Grafton Architects. The Gandon Medal is the highest personal award given to an Architect in Ireland. The practice was presented with the 2020 RIBA Royal Gold Medal in London. Grafton Architects were the winners of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies Van der Rohe Award 2022 for the Townhouse, Kingston University London.
Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell were selected as the 2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates, the award that is known internationally as architecture’s highest honour. Photo © Morley von Sternberg
Wolf D. Prix, co-founder, CEO, and Design principal of Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna, was a longtime friend of Claude Parent. Born in 1942 in Vienna, Austria, he studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, the Architectural Association (AA) in London, and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles. In 1968 Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer founded Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna as an alternative to the linear architectural thinking of the time. Wolf D. Prix is counted among the originators of the deconstructivist architecture movement. Coop Himmelb(l)au had its international breakthrough with the invitation to the exhibition “Deconstructivist Architecture” at MoMA New York in 1988. Throughout his career, Wolf D. Prix remained very active in teaching and academic life. He was a tenured professor at the University of Applied Arts (Studio Prix) from 1990 to 2011 and served as Chair of the Institute of Architecture and Vice-Rector of the Institute of Architecture from 2003 to 2012. During this time, he helped shape international standards for architectural education. He also taught at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, MIT, Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and SCI-Arc. Wolf D. Prix’s honors include the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1999 and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 2009. Additional awards include, among others: the Schelling Architecture Award (1992), the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2002), the Annie Spink Award (2004), the Jencks Award (2008), the Hessian Cultural Prize (2013), the Digital Futures Project Award (2021), and the ACADIA Lifetime Achievement Award (2021). Wolf D. Prix was chosen as one of “100 Architects of the Year 2024” by the Korean Institute of Architects. He is a member of the Austrian Arts Senate, the Curia for Art (from 2014 - 2025 chairman). Wolf D. Prix’s work has been published in countless books and periodicals, and his architectural designs have been exhibited in numerous museums and collections worldwide. In 2006, Wolf D. Prix was commissioner for the Austrian contribution to the 10th Venice Biennale.
Photo © Dan Alka