Just as the finest achievements in the film, literary and scientific worlds are rewarded, so architecture too receives its accolades in the form of the Pritzker Prize, considered the Nobel prize for architecture.

This award is considered the highest honour within the world of architecture. It is awarded annually to an architect of any nationality whose work is the result of a combination of talent, vision and commitment and has a notable impact on society-at-large.

This Nobel prize for architects was created in 1979 by J.A. Pritzker, the American entrepreneur who founded the Hyatt hotel chain. The chain's foundation sponsors the awards ceremony for this prize. The physical award is a medal produced in bronze with the words 'strength, comfort and pleasure' inscribed on it in honour of the Roman architect Vitruvius. Aside from the medal and prestige garnered by winning a Pritzker, the award-winner also receives $100,000.

Some of the most renowned architects have been honoured with this award, among them Philip Johnson, recipient of the very first Pritzker back in 1979, for his Glass House. Other fortunate recipients of the Nobel prize for architecture include Oscar Niemeyer (1988) for the cathedral in Brasilia, Frank Gehry, Aldo Rossi, Zaha Hadid and the Spaniard Rafael Moneo, for his Kursaal Convention Centre and Auditorium in 1996.