Slate: Architecture is a team sport

Why does the annual Pritzker Prize for architecture go to just one person?

In Slate, Witold Rybczynski argues that "the Pritzker Prize promotes the fiction that buildings spring from the imagination of an individual architect—the master builder".

The modern building is not only the product of the lead architect, but of engineers, contractors, fabricators and consultants, not to mention other team members of the architect's firm - 140, in the case of this year's prize winner Jean Nouvel.

Architecture tells us something about the society that produced it, which is why so many work so hard to preserve our quality buildings.

"Starchitecture", or isolated, ego-driven object pieces that aren't designed primarily for the usability of human beings, is only encouraged by rewarding of the Pritzker Prize to an individual.

And it's a slap in the face to the thousands of other people who make modern life possible - and beautiful.