March 2009
Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza has been accorded one of architecture's most prestigious prizes, the Royal Gold Medal.
As part of the Royal Institute of British Architect's (RIBA) celebrations for its 175th anniversary, Siza was presented with the award by Her Majesty The Queen at a private audience at Buckingham Palace, followed by a celebratory dinner held in his honour at the institute.
Awarded in recognition of a lifetime's work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen and is given annually to a person or group of people whose lifetime's work has had a significant influence on international architecture.
The honour recognises the impact Siza has made on architecture; he is a major figure in European architecture who has remained true to his artistic and ethical principles and achieved a prolific portfolio of work worldwide, which remains rooted in his native city of Porto.
This accolade also recognises the contribution Siza has made to his home country of Portugal, from the low cost housing scheme for the local government of Evora, to the College of Education, Setubal (1993), the University of Oporto Faculty of Architecture (1993) and the Adeaga Mayor Winery (2006).
As testament to his international reputation, Siza has designed buildings in Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands and South Korea. Unusually for an architect of such international standing, he has deliberately kept his studio small to ensure his attention to every project.
"Álvaro Siza is simply a profoundly complete architect who defies categorisation. The forging of a masterful and seemingly inevitable architecture out of the possibilities of a site is one of the supreme characteristics of Álvaro Siza's architecture. He manipulates his readings of place into sculptural forms that are never predictable or ordinary, yet are never allowed to dominate over use or typological intelligibility,” said Sunand Prasad, President of the RIBA.
"In Siza's buildings, perhaps like no others, it is the relationships between the elements of the architecture that is given primacy rather than the shape or texture of the elements themselves. This is an architecture in which an economy of expressive means is combined with an abundance of spatial revelation."
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