RIBA Royal Gold Medal: The Latest Architecture and News

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw has been awarded the 2019 Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Having played a leading role in British architecture for more than half a century, Grimshaw’s acclaimed works include the landmark International Terminal at London’s Waterloo station and the visionary Eden Project in Cornwall.

The medal is awarded in recognition of a lifetime’s work and is approved personally by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It is given to a person, or group of people, who have had a significant influence "either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture." Previous winners include Neave Brown (2018) and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (2017).

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Students from South Africa, Belarus, and Germany have been chosen as the winners of the 14th edition MultiComfort House Students Contest, a contest created in 2004 and organized by Saint-Gobain. Entrants were to develop a project based on the principles of the multi-comfort concept, that is, "an optimum indoor environment ensuring the right level of fresh air, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort provided in a sustainable and energy efficient manner," as explained by the organizers.

In close collaboration with the Department of Planning of the Municipality of Dubai and the Dubai Properties Group, Saint-Gobain presented the challenge of designing a cross-cultural community project in the cultural village of Dubai, on the shores of the Al Jaddaf inlet.

Considering Dubai's hot and humid climate, the students had to find a way to reconcile reducing the energy consumption of the refrigeration and ventilation systems without compromising any of the comforts of the inhabitants; while at the same time providing an optimal relationship with the environment.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has awarded its 2018 Royal Gold Medal to London-based artist and architect Neave Brown, a revered Modernist architect best known for his visionary Alexandra Road housing estate. Built by London's Camden Council in the 1970s the 500-home estate is, in Brown's own words, a "piece of city" containing shops, workshops, a community centre, a special needs school and children’s centre, a care home for young people with learning difficulties, and a 16,000sqm public park.

The medal is awarded in recognition of a lifetime’s work and is approved personally by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It is given to a person, or group of people, who have had a significant influence "either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture." The medal is being presented earlier than usual—in 2017 rather than 2018—owing to Brown's poor health.

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Update: Paulo Mendes da Rocha was today awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal at a ceremony at the RIBA headquarters in London. The article below was originally published when the award was announced on September 29, 2016.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has awarded its 2017 Royal Gold Medal to Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The 87-year-old is among Brazil's most celebrated architects, known for his special brand of Brazilian Brutalism which has had a dramatic effect in his home country, particularly in the city of São Paulo. The award continues a spectacularly successful year for Mendes da Rocha, who won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale in May, and was announced the 2016 Premium Imperiale Laureate just weeks ago. Mendes da Rocha has also previously received the Pritzker Prize in 2006 and the Mies van der Rohe Prize for his Pinacoteca de São Paulo project in 2000.

Mendes da Rocha becomes the second Brazilian to win the RIBA's Gold Medal, after Oscar Niemeyer received the award in 1998. He joins other luminaries such as Zaha Hadid (2016), Frank Gehry (2000), Norman Foster (1983), and Frank Lloyd Wright (1941).

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A year ago today, on June 16th 2015, the architectural community lost Charles Correa (b.1930) – a man often referred to as “India’s Greatest Architect” and a person whose impact on the built environment extended far beyond his own native country. Rooted in India, Correa’s work blended Modernity and traditional vernacular styles to form architecture with a universal appeal. Over the course of his career, this work earned him—among many others—awards including the 1984 RIBA Royal Gold Medal (UK), the 1994 Praemium Imperiale (Japan), and the 2006 Padma Vibhushan (India’s second highest civilian honor).

Through his buildings we, as both architects and people who experience space, have learnt about the lyrical qualities of light and shade, the beauty that can be found in humble materials, the power of color, and the joy of woven narratives in space. Perhaps more than anything else, however, it was his belief in the notion that architecture can shape society which ensures the continued relevance of his work. “At it’s most vital, architecture is an agent of change,” Correa once wrote. “To invent tomorrow – that is its finest function.”

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Zaha Hadid, who was named as the the first sole woman to be awarded the UK's highest honour for architects in her own right in 2015, received the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) 2016 Royal Gold Medal at a ceremony in London yesterday. Hadid, who was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 2012, received the Pritzker Prize in 2004. Her practice also took both the 2010 and 2011 RIBA Stirling Prizes.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have revealed that Dame Zaha Hadid will receive the 2016 Royal Gold Medal — the first sole woman to be awarded the UK's highest honour for architects in her own right. Previous female winners (Sheila O’Donnell in 2015, Patty Hopkins in 1994, and Ray Eames in 1979) were each recognised alongside their husbands and practice partners.

Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen and is awarded to those who have had a significant influence "either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture." Other notable Royal Gold Medallists include Frank Gehry (2000), Lord Norman Foster, Baron of Thames Bank (1983), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1959), Le Corbusier (1953), and Frank Lloyd Wright (1941). The medallists' names are engraved into the marble wall at the RIBA's headquarters in London.

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Charles Correa, widely considered to be one of India's greatest living architects, died yesterday in Mumbai at the age of 84. Correa, who was also a respected urban planner and renowned activist for the quality of cities, had been the recipient of the RIBA Gold Medal in 1984, the Praemium Imperiale in 1994, and the 7th Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998. His work had also been recognised with one of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri, in 1972. In 2013 Correa donated over 6000 drawings and 150 models from his archives to the RIBA in London.

Mr. Charles Correa's architectural marvels are widely cherished, reflecting his brilliance, innovative zeal & wonderful aesthetic sense: PM

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) June 17, 2015

When Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey, who practice in partnership as O'Donnell + Tuomey, were named as this year's recipients of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, a palpable collective satisfaction appeared to spread throughout the profession. No one could find criticism in Joseph Rykwert and Níall McLaughlin's nomination, nor the ultimate choice of the RIBA Honours Committee, to bestow the award upon the Irish team. Their astonishingly rigourous body of work, compiled and constructed over the last twenty five years, has an appeal which extends beyond Irish and British shores. A robust stock of cultural, community and educational projects, alongside family homes and social housing projects, leaves little doubt about the quality, depth and breadth of their mutual capabilities and the skill of those that they choose to collaborate with.

Read the conversation with the Gold Medallists after the break.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has selected Irish architects Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey as recipients of the 2015 Royal Gold Medal, one of the world's most prestigious lifetime achievement awards for architecture. Approved personally by the Queen, the award recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of architecture.

The RIBA praised the way O'Donnell + Tuomey came together in the early 1990s to combine "Sheila’s quiet, studied 'rationalism' alongside John’s fluent, rhetorical 'constructivism,'" commenting that "through their buildings, publications, exhibitions and teaching they have forged a confident new identity for Irish architecture."

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the President’s Medals Student Awards at a special event in London. The awards, known to be the world's most prestigious awards in architectural education, were inaugurated in 1836 and are therefore the institutes oldest award (even older than the RIBA Gold Medal). Three medals - the Bronze for a Part I student, the Silver for a Part II student, and the Dissertation Medal - are awarded to "promote excellence in the study of architecture [and] to reward talent and to encourage architectural debate worldwide."

Around 300 schools of architecture from over 60 countries were invited to nominate design projects and dissertations by their students, of which students of the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London won all of this year's primary awards.

Architectural critic, historian and writer Joseph Rykwert, 86, has been named as the recipient of the 2014 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, one of the world’s most prestigious architecture awards. Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by the Queen and is presented to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence on the advancement of architecture.

Describing Rykwert’s recognition as “long overdue,” RIBA President Stephen Hodder stated: “Joseph's writing and teaching are rare in that he can deliver the most profound thinking on architecture in an accessible way. All our lives are the richer for it.”

In response to selection, Joseph Rykwert stated:

It’s a rarity that the architecture community is presented a chance to indulge in a Peter Zumthor lecture. Often referred to a architecture’s reclusive “man of mystery”, the Swiss legend has produced a handful of projects so eloquently designed that they have captured the attention of the world. In honor of his mastery, RIBA awarded Zumthor with the institute’s prestigious Royal Gold Medal in February. In this video, he gives the 2013 Royal Gold Medal Lecture at the RIBA, focused on the theme of Presence in Architecture.