Riken Yamamoto (born 1945) is a Japanese architect who received the Pritzker Prize in 2024. Born in Beijing to Japanese parents, he returned with his family to Japan in 1947 and grew up in Yokohama. He studied at Nihon University and the Tokyo University of the Arts and then under Hiroshi Hara at the University of Tokyo, and in 1973 founded his office, Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop. The Pritzker jury, chaired by Alejandro Aravena, praised the way he blurs "the boundary between public and private" to create conditions for community, calling him "a reassuring architect who brings dignity to everyday life".
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His most representative works include housing in Yokohama and Tokyo, such as the Rotunda Building (1981) and the Hamlet (1988). Later came university work, among it a research building at Future University Hakodate (2000). The Yokosuka Museum of Art (2007), in a coastal park in Kanagawa, won the Japan Institute of Architects Award. His later works include The Circle at Zurich Airport (2020).
