The Netherlands’ Sikkens Prize 2015 Awarded to David Chipperfield

On Sunday 29 March the British architect David Chipperfield will be presented with the Sikkens Prize. The Sikkens Prize is one of the oldest independent art prizes in the Netherlands. The prize was established in 1960 and previous winners include Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Donald Judd, HEMA and Bridget Riley. All were recognized for their revolutionary use of colour in their work.

Fifth Avenue. Valentino New York Flagship Store. By David Chipperfield. Photograph © Santi Caleca.

David Chipperfield is the 36th winner of the Sikkens Prize. One of the projects praised by the jury is the Neues Museum in Berlin.

According to the jury: ‘Chipperfield’s work on the Neues Museum in Berlin is a magnificent example of his way of working. Like no other he knows how to combine the old with the new. In his spatial compositions he achieves a delicate balance between colour, material end texture. Chipperfield uses the colours provided by the architectural context and the building materials in an unemphatic yet expressive way.’

Sikkens Foundation

The Sikkens Prize is awarded every two years by the Sikkens Foundation, an independent cultural foundation promoting social, cultural and scientific developments in society in which colour plays an important role. The Sikkens Foundation is financially supported by AkzoNobel and is partner of the Akzo Nobel Human Cities Initiative.

The Sikkens Foundation board: Hester Alberdingk Thijm, Bernard Colenbrander, Lennart Booij, Ruud Joosten, Annet Lekkerkerker, Niek Koppen, Kees Kuijken (treasurer), Dingeman Kuilman (chairman), Benno Tempel, Iris Lamers (secretary).

Read less

City of Culture by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Oskar Da Riz.

David Chipperfield, "Sticks and Stones", an Intervention, installation view. Photograph © David von Becker.

David Chipperfield. Nobel Center. Image © David Chipperfield Architects.

Detail façade. David Chipperfield. Nobel Center. Image © David Chipperfield Architects.

Outside view, Musée des Beaux-arts in Reims. Copyright David Chipperfield Architects.

Staircase Hall. ©Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects.

View more images

Metalocus recommends

Parapimi by Lisabesur Arquitectos. Photograph by Rafaela Rodríguez

Organic growth among trees. Parapimi by Lisabesur Arquitectos

Costa del Sol Glamping Village by Canobardin + Estudio Cano Lasso. Photograph by Nico Díaz

Holidays in the garden. Costa del Sol Glamping Village by Canobardin + Estudio Cano Lasso

M45 by Triptyque. Photograph by Salem Mostefaoui

A new vision for the city with an industrial past. M45 by Triptyque

More information

David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and studied architecture at the Kingston School of Art and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London before working at the practices of Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers and Norman Foster.

In 1985 he founded David Chipperfield Architects, which today has over 300 staff at its offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai.

David Chipperfield has taught and held conferences in Europe and the United States and has received honorary degrees from the universities of Kingston and Kent.

He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and an honorary fellow of both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 2010 he received a knighthood for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. In 2011 he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and in 2013 the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, while in 2021 he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in recognition of a lifetime’s work.

In 2012 he curated the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.