PRITZKER PRIZE OFFERS OPPORTUNITY TO PONDER FOUNDATIONS OF ARCHITECTURE.(SHOWTIME)

Byline: HERBERT MUSCHAMP New York Times

Moneo refuses Pritzker Prize! Architecture's Highest Award Turned Down by Leading Spanish Architect! Architecture World Thrown Into Turmoil!

Just kidding. Jose Rafael Moneo is indeed the winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize for 1996.

He is, in fact, Spain's most prominent architect. And he is scheduled to receive the coveted award in June, at a ceremony at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Good choice. Good prize. Congratulations all around.

But I hope that one day the Pritzker Prize will set off a furor as big as that detonated by this year's Tonys. Actually, even a teapot tempest would do.

Part of what makes prizes valuable is the scuttlebutt that swirls around them: the gossip, the speculation, the sniping and occasionally accurate tea-leaf reading that important prizes stimulate.

The right to snipe is the prize …