Tokyo-born architect Shigeru Ban won the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2014. The 56-year-old is known for using his design talents in humanitarian efforts, such as creating habitats from recyclable paper cartons in disaster areas. Here we see the temporary cardboard version of the Christchurch Cathedral in 2013, several blocks away from the permanent location that was damaged after the 2011 earthquake.
Courtesy Stephen Goodenough/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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His commercial projects for private clients are equally innovative. Shigeru Ban's signature lattice design can be seen on such monuments as the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France.
Courtesy Stephen Goodenough/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
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Indian fashion designer Rahul Mishra shot to the international stage after winning the Woolmark Prize in February. He became the first non-European winner to receive the Milanese scholarship.
BERTRAND GUAY/ AFP/ Getty Images
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Mishra is applauded for revitalizing the Indian handicraft weaving and hand-making traditions. His designs display progressive graphic hand embroidery.
BERTRAND GUAY/ AFP/ Getty Images
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Colombia University student Emma Sulkowicz carried her mattress with her everywhere to protest the school ignoring her on-campus rape case. The gutsy performance art work has sparked a national campaign "Carry That Weight."
Andrew Burton/ AFP/ Getty Images
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Sulkowicz is a senior visual arts student at Columbia University, her protest actions also double as her senior thesis project. She said she would commit to carrying the mattress until the university expels the rapist or he leaves.
Andrew Burton/ AFP/ Getty Images
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One of the most popular and striking art shows this year was Kara Walker's "A Subtlety." The installation of sculptures made from refined sugar was held inside the sprawling defunct Domino Sugar Refinery.
Andrew Burton/ AFP/ Getty Images
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The centerpiece of the show is a nearly 80- feet-long sphinx figure with the torso and head of a woman that references America's history of sugar slavery.
Andrew Burton/ AFP/ Getty Images
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Certainly the most debated contemporary show amongst art insiders was Jeff Koons' retrospective at the Whitney. The artist-celebrity that everyone loves to hate, Koons has never enjoyed a comprehensive look at his staggering career on a scale like this. The show comprised nearly 150 objects dating from 1978 to present and is the last to occupy the Whitney's Marcel Breuer building before the museum opens in its new building in 2015.
Courtesy Ronald Amstutz
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Ai Weiwei filled Alcatraz with one of the most politically outspoken shows of the year. "@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz" featured a giant rainbow dragon with irises that look like the Twitter logo and a body covered in quotes from political prisoners.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Ai is banned from leaving Beijing and had to create the exhibition remotely through assistants. This carpet of portraits was painstakingly created from Legos.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Tiny porcelain flowers fill the sinks and toilets of prison cells at Alcatraz. The prison had one of the highest suicide rates when it was still functioning.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Who can forget Rihanna's stunning barely-there outfit for the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards ceremony where she received the Fashion Icon of 2014 award. The star looked like she was swathed in pink glitter and nothing else.
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Featuring a beautiful facade representing people from all walks of life in Liverpool, the Everyman Theatre lives up to its name certainly in design. The building garnered the RIBA Stirling Prize 2014 for its architects Haworth Tompkins, beating out other creations by Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, as well as O'Donnell and Tuomey, who later won the RIBA's Gold Medal.
Photo by Philip Vile, Courtesy Haworth Tompkins
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Curated by Minsuk Cho, the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 took the Golden Lion award. During her research for the presentation on North and South Korean architecture, Cho found herself caught up in a campaign to connect Koreans from both sides and was applauded for showing the potential of a unified nation. The image above is by Ahn Sekwon, "Cheonggye Stream's View of Seoul Lights," (2004).
One of the jurors and the Executive Director of CTBUH, Antony Wood said of the building: "There have been major advances in the incorporation of greenery in high-rise buildings over the past few years -- but nothing on the scale of this building has been attempted or achieved."
Richard Braddish/CTBUH
British artist Alex Chinneck made a splash with his architecture-inspired art installations. His mind-bending works include a house that appears to be split in half and floating, set up in Covent Gardens.
Courtesy Alex Chinneck
Chinneck also cast houses out of wax and deliberately heated them to melt gradually in public spaces. The artists says he's working on a piece that will tie the Tate Modern's chimney into a knot.
Courtesy Alex Chinneck
The Turner Prize, which is worth £25,000 ($40,000), was awarded to the Irish film artist Duncan Campbell. His film, It For Others, was described by the panel as "an ambitious and complex film which rewards repeated viewing." It is a response to a "film essay" from 1953 about African art and colonialism.
Courtesy of Duncan Campbell and Rodeo Gallery
This archive footage is interspersed with new material, including a dance routine based on the equations in Karl Marx's seminal work, "Das Kapital," created by the choreographer Michael Clark. All of this is overlaid with a voiceover that imitates the style of a lecture.
Courtesy of Duncan Campbell and Rodeo Gallery
World Building of the Year 2014 was The Chapel, a community space on the outskirts of Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. The structure, designed by Vietnamese firm a21studio, was lauded at the World Architecture Festival earlier this year.
Courtesy a21studio
Color and light flood the space the community space that can be used for everything from exhibitions to weddings.
