Kengo Kuma Wins the 2027 Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award

The Créateurs Design Awards has announced that Kengo Kuma will receive the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award at its 2027 ceremony in Paris. One of two Legacy Awards conferred by the organization, the honor recognizes a career whose influence has transformed the built environment across generations and continents. Named for pioneering French designer Andrée Putman, the award is determined by members of the Créateurs Design Association rather than through submissions. Previous recipients include Norman Foster, Tadao Ando, and Christian de Portzamparc.

Born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1954, Kuma founded Kengo Kuma & Associates in Tokyo in 1990 and opened a Paris office in 2008. Over more than three decades, he has pursued architecture closely attuned to nature, reinterpreting Japanese building traditions through contemporary materials and construction techniques. His buildings often temper monumental scale through timber screens, deep eaves, and finely articulated surfaces that draw the surrounding landscape into the architectural experience. A professor at the University of Tokyo since 2009, Kuma has recently received the Imperial Prize and Japan Art Academy Prize, the Prix Versailles for Best Museum, and the 38th Louis I. Kahn Award.

“In my design practice, I consider myself a long-distance runner,” Kuma said in a statement. “I believe the most important thing is to keep running over the long term with a single goal in mind: achieving harmony between humans and nature. More than anything, I am honored that the Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the entirety of everything I do.” 

To that end, Kuma’s most important buildings trace a consistent effort to soften the presence of architecture within its surroundings. At the Victoria & Albert Museum in Dundee, horizontal bands of concrete rise beside the River Tay with a craggy profile inspired by Scotland’s coastal cliffs. For the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, he invoked traditional Japanese architecture at monumental scale, layering broad eaves with timber sourced from all 47 prefectures to temper an immense footprint. The timber-framed entrance to the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense, Denmark, mimics the town’s historic gabled houses before meandering pathways lead to a series of cylindrical pavilions built using natural timber and topped with green roofs. 

Writing has long provided Kuma with another avenue for developing those ideas. “Writing is also a vital part of this journey: the ideas that come to me while running often take the form of essays and books,” says the architect, who famously penned critiques about his home country’s “extreme imbalance” between buildings and nature following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. His vocabulary has also entered the domestic realm: this year, at Milan Design Week, Kuma designed a collection for Jaipur Rugs inspired by the intricate façades of his most distinctive buildings by translating their geometric compositions and material character into soft surfaces. 

“For more than three decades, Kengo Kuma has asked how architecture can restore the relationship between people and the natural world, and he has answered on every continent,” says Yuri Xavier, co-founder of the Créateurs Design Awards. “Our members chose to honor not a single building but the entirety of that pursuit, in the spirit of dialogue between tradition and modernity that Andrée Putman herself embodied.” 

The Créateurs Design Awards will present the honor at the Shangri-La Paris on January 16, 2027, during its annual ceremony. Winners across 15 additional categories spanning architecture, interiors, product design, and art and culture will also be announced that evening.