Congratulations to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the architects behind our impressive new building here in Toulouse. 

The long-term associates and co-founders of the acclaimed Grafton Architects in Dublin were awarded on March 3rd the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, commonly seen as the Nobel of the architecture world. 

The pair was selected to receive the 2020 Pritzker Prize thanks to their sensitivity to the natural elements, as well as qualities like their emphasis on collaboration. They are the first two women to share the profession’s highest honor.  

“Architecture could be described as one of the most complex and important cultural activities on the planet,” remarks Farrell. “To be an architect is an enormous privilege. To win this prize is a wonderful endorsement of our belief in architecture. Thank you for this great honor.”

The TSE/IAST building is the latest of their achievements, some 15,300m3 over eight levels, blending harmoniously into the typical Toulouse architecture by featuring brick buttresses, ramps and courtyards, metaphors for the "pink city" filled with bridges, walls, promenades and stone towers.