Chicago, Illinois, USA

By Christian Narkiewicz-Laine

The Epstein files are the gift that keeps giving.

The latest casualty is Thomas Pritzker, the American billionaire heir and businessman and member of the Pritzker family, who has resigned his position as Executive Chairman of Hyatt Hotels and President of the Pritzker Family Philanthropic Fund, the Hyatt Foundation’s charitable wing the supports the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

He is also the cousin to JB Pritzker, the Governor of Illinois.

Mr. Pritzker, whose net worth is estimated at $6.3 billion, along with his Chicago socialite wife Cindy Pritzker, initiated the prize in 1979.

The most recent Epstein files dump by the U.S. Department of Justice has further implicated Mr. Pritzker the hotel magnate.

And, ironically, his resignation comes at a time when the Pritzker Fund has just announced the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke as the 2026 Laureate.

According to Hyatt’s Pritzker Fund, the Pritzker Architecture Prize was established to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

Contributions to humanity?

In light of the alleged pedophilia links to Mr. Pritzker and now his resignation from Hyatt and the Pritzker Fund, “contributions to humanity” seems morally and ethically hypocritical.

In fact, the entire “Pritzker Prize” has been thoroughly compromised, if not morally tainted and tarnished forever by Mr. Pritzker; the founder and 21-year steward of the prize and his scandalous association with Jeffrey Epstein and convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell who is serving a 20-year prison time for sex-trafficking.  

Absolute loss of any integrity. Zilch.

In the millions of pages of Epstein files that were recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice, details have emerged that Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Epstein frequently corresponded about meals and appointments even after Mr. Epstein’s plea deal on sex crimes charges in 2008. 

Emails between the two stretches from at least 2010—two years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from a child as young as 14—to early 2019, the year Epstein was arrested for child sex-trafficking before “killing himself” in Federal prison, according to the local medical examiner.

In one email about legal representation for an architect, Mr. Pritzker said: “Flexible principles!  It’s what I love about lawyers and politicians.”

Mr. Pritzker’s name appears on another list Mr. Epstein sent himself the week before he was arrested with the subject line “list for Bannon Steve.”

One file also revealed that Mr. Epstein considered attending the Pritzker Prize ceremony in Beijing in 2012 when the Chinese architect Wang Shu won the prize.

Separately, Mr. Epstein or his staff made references to Mr. Pritzker numerous times in nondescript lists or scheduling emails. 

One marked Mr. Pritzker on a “possible Invite List” for a seminar on “Money & Power” that also included the names of Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos.

However, according to The Architecture Newspaper, direct sexual allegations against Mr. Pritzker by underaged Virginia Roberts Giuffre were first made public in 2019 after three years of court depositions. 

They write, “in a 2016 deposition, Ms. Giuffre’s lawyer asked: ‘How many times have you had sex with Tom Pritzker’?” Ms. Giuffre replied: “I believe I was with Tom once’.” 

“At that same 2016 court appearance, Ms. Giuffre said she had sex with an ‘owner of a large hotel chain’ in France. Ms. Giuffre also said she was ‘sent’ by Ms. Maxwell to perform the sex acts.”

Mr. Pritzker, through a Hyatt spokesperson, has denied those claims.

In a prepared statement, he said he deeply regrets his association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Other prominent architects, designers, and architecture benefactors also have been named in the Epstein files—caught up in the Epstein Class scandal—with ties between the notorious sex trafficker and the architectural elite.

One noteworthy benefactor named in the public documents is Les Wexner, founder of L Brands—a parent company for Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, and Victoria’s Secret.  In 1989, The Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University designed by Peter Eisenman opened its doors; a famous project financed by Mr. Wexner, who has also been accused of sexual allegations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Also, the names of several architects and designers were listed in Mr. Epstein’s “Black Book” when its contents were published by New York Magazine in 2019. 

Those include interior designer Alberto Pinto who worked on Epstein’s $56 million Upper East Side mansion; interior designer Muriel Brandolini; and architects Peter Marino, David Rockwell, Jean-Michel Gathy, and Ricardo Legorreta. 

Resort architect Edward Tuttle was also listed as the designer of the “main house” on Mr. Epstein’s Little St. James Island, which was completed in 2003. Also in 2019, architect Neri Oxman became part of the scandal when it was disclosed that Jeffrey Epstein had supported MIT Media Lab, where Mr. Oxman is a top-ranking faculty member.

As of yet, Mr. Pritzker has not been named in any investigation into Mr. Epstein’s crimes, nor has any high-profile American individual, businessman, politician, or billionaire elite, vis-à-vis “the rich, powerful, and the famous,” as the U.S. government under the Trump administration continues to shield, redact, and hide any accomplices or their criminal wrongdoing.

Since 2005, as head of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Mr. Pritzker has awarded his prize and handed medals to Thom Mayne, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Richard Rogers, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, Wang Shu, Toyo Ito, Alejandro Aravena, Shigeru Ban, Frei Otto, Alejandro Aravena, Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vitaila, and Balkrishna Doshi.

In 2018, renowned Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier was accused of sexual harassment and assault by five women, including four former employees. The scandal detailed a pattern of predatory behavior, leading to his eventual retirement from his firm. 

After 2019, when Mr. Epstein was convicted and publicly exposed as a pedophile and sex-trafficker, including his imprisoned cohort Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Prizker maintained his relationship with Mr. Epstein and continued to award Arata Isozaki, Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara, Anne Locaton and Jean-Phiilippe Vassai, Diebedo Francis Kéré, David Chipperfield, Riken Yamamoto, Liu Jiakun, and now Smiljan Radić Clarke with the “Pritzker Prize.”

Moreover, Alejandro Aravena, Barry Bergdoll, Debra Berke, Stephen Breyer, Kazuyo Sejima, André Aranha Correa do Lago, Anne Lacation, and Hashim Sarkis strangely continue today as jury members for the prize.

The question remains, will this list of distinguished, world-famous architects sever their relationship to the Pritzker Prize for Architecture or remain appallingly silent and detached concerning the seriousness of child sex-trafficking, child abuse, and pedophilia as a serious crime and a brutal violation of human rights?

So far, shamefully, no one has stepped forward.