Smiljan Radić Opens Up in Mundo Frágil at MoMA

Smiljan Radić Clarke, the Chilean architect who won this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize, came to New York this month for a film about himself. Mundo Frágil, a documentary by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, had its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art on Oct. 12, opening the 18th Architecture and Design Film Festival, according to Surface magazine. It is less a study of buildings than a road trip through the places that shaped him.

The film

Surface's David Graver writes that the documentary forgoes an academic survey of Radić's work. Instead it travels to places that influenced his practice and, more importantly, him as a person: an eccentric Santiago house he wishes he had designed, his own remote residence in the forests of Vilches and the Atacama landscape where his grandfather immigrated in 1919. Graver calls it an intimate adventure and a poetic character study.

Radić told Surface he has known the filmmakers for years and that the project felt natural, more about traveling together than producing a film. He said the group works in Italian, which is their shared language, and that the film was shot before he won the Pritzker. He had not yet watched it when he spoke, and he added that he is the same person who spoke three months earlier, without the prize.

The house he did not design

The film begins at a home Radić calls the best Chilean house he knows. He told Surface it belongs to an entomologist, was designed by the architect Miguel Eyquem and is full of insects, hence the nickname Casa de los Bichos, or insect house. He loves its dry, down-to-the-bones sensation. He is now designing a house in the desert called Dry House, in which all the materials are thin and specific and there are two materials and no more. It is comfortable, he said, in the sense of being austere, so that the landscape is present every day.

What the Pritzker jury said

The Pritzker Prize announced Radić as its 55th laureate on March 12, 2026. His practice, Smiljan Radić Clarke, was founded in 1995 and is based in Santiago, where he was born. Architectural Record quotes the jury saying his work sits at the crossroads of uncertainty, material experimentation and cultural memory, and that he favors fragility over any unwarranted claim to certainty. The jury added that his buildings appear temporary, unstable or deliberately unfinished, yet offer quiet, optimistic shelter. The prize's media kit lists upcoming projects in Albania, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

That language is a good match for the title of the film. Mundo Frágil means fragile world, and Radić said in the interview that in architecture, memory is more important than materiality. We do not need to preserve old things just because they are old, he said, and in places with no money you have to accept the weathering.

A photographer, not quite

One small detail from the interview shows his sensibility. Radić said he is not a photographer and is a really bad one, but that he bought a monochrome Leica and takes pictures for himself. He sent some from the trip to the filmmakers, and they appear in the film. They are all out of focus, he said, but not on purpose.

Why it matters for New York

The premiere put one of architecture's newest laureates on a MoMA stage, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers moderated by MoMA's Martino Stierli, per the festival's listing. The film then screened at Village East on Oct. 13 and 17, per the festival's schedule page. For New Yorkers, it is a rare chance to hear a Pritzker winner talk about loss, weathering and memory rather than awards.

What we could not confirm

We have not seen the film. The details of the MoMA conversation and the Village East dates come from festival listings that we saw only in summary, so check the festival site before planning. Radić's remarks are quoted from one interview, and we did not verify the grandfather's 1919 date or the description of the Santiago house. Any later U.S. release has not been announced in our sources. The cover photograph was taken at a talk in Boskovice, Czech Republic, and is unrelated to the film.

FAQ

What is Mundo Frágil?

A documentary about Smiljan Radić by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, which premiered at MoMA on Oct. 12, 2026.

Who is Smiljan Radić?

A Chilean architect and the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate.

Is the film streaming?

We found no release plan in our sources.

Sources

*Cover photo: Tomáš Znamenáček, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smiljan_Radić.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smiljan_Radić.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*