SANAA Wins 2025 RIBA Royal Gold Medal

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) introduced SANAA because the recipient of the 2025 RIBA Gold Medal. Pritzker Prize-winning architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s agency was cited by the institute for “producing works that deliver simplicity, gentle, and magnificence to the fore” and reshaping “the worldwide design panorama.”

“We’re delighted and really honored to obtain the Royal Gold Medal,” the architects stated. “We now have at all times believed that structure can rework and restore environments, serving to us to narrate to our environment, nature, and one another.”

In its quotation, RIBA praised SANAA’s tasks reminiscent of New York’s New Museum (2007), the Rolex Studying Centre in Lausanne (2010), the twenty first Century Museum of Modern Artwork in Kanazawa, Japan (2004), and the Sydney Fashionable in Australia (2022) as examples of SANAA”s capacity to “mix transparency with solidity, uniting private and non-private areas” which might be “daring but respectful of the native atmosphere.”

1

2

3

Rolex Studying Centre in Lausanne (1); Sydney Fashionable in Australia (2); twenty first Century Museum of Modern Artwork in Kanazawa, Japan (3). Photographs © Alain Herzon (1); Iwan Baan (2); SANAA (3)

“Exemplifying an unassuming but impactful management within the evolving apply and concept of structure, SANAA’s designs show that structure can steadiness performance with profound magnificence,” stated Muyiwa Oki, president and chair of the 2025 RIBA Honours Committee. “True pioneers within the subject, their unwavering dedication to sustainable, user-centered design has quietly blazed a path for others, setting an inspiring commonplace for the way forward for our constructed atmosphere.”  

Lesley Lokko, 2024 RIBA Gold Medal winner; architect and BIG founder Bjarke Ingels; and Sadie Morgan, architect and co-founding director of dRMM, have been additionally on the 2025 committee.

Based in 1995 by Sejima and Nishizawa, Tokyo-based SANAA’s worldwide apply spans residential and institutional tasks, inside and product design, and concrete planning. Its work, just like the Louvre-Lens in France (2012), Bocconi Faculty of Administration in Milan (2019), and the Grace Farms Basis headquarters in New Canaan (2015), is often outlined by clear traces, minimalist facades, and considerate engagement with the atmosphere.

1

2

3

Louvre-Lens in France (1); Bocconi Faculty of Administration in Milan (2); Grace Farms in New Canaan, Connecticut (3). Photographs © SANAA (1-2); Iwan Baan (3)

“All through our careers we’ve tried to make areas that deliver individuals collectively, inviting them to think about new methods of dwelling and studying collectively,” an announcement from SANAA learn. “Structure is at all times teamwork, and we’re very grateful to everybody who has given us alternatives to develop these concepts over time, and to all these individuals who have labored tirelessly with us to understand them.”

The RIBA Gold Medal has been awarded since 1848 and is introduced yearly in recognition of an individual or group’s “important affect both straight or not directly on the development of structure.” Latest winners have included Grafton Architects (2020), David Adjaye (2021),  Balkrishna Doshi (2022), and Yasmeen Lari (2023). 

The 2025 prize might be introduced at a public celebration on Might 1.