RA Architecture Awards 2018
The RA launched two new international architecture awards in 2018 that demonstrate and heighten the RA’s role as a global champion of architecture.
Royal Academy Architecture Prize 2018
Itsuko Hasegawa was awarded Royal Academy Architecture Prize in 2018, honouring her inspiring and enduring contribution to the culture of architecture.
Described by the judging panel as "one of Japan’s most important architects", Hasegawa has largely been under-recognised despite her significant contribution to modern architecture both in Japan and around the world. She began her career working with Japan’s Metabolists group of architects, including Kisho Kurakawa, Fumihiko Maki and Kenzo Tange, and later went on to work with Kazuo Shinohara, whose work is more linked to traditional Japanese architecture. These two very different influences have informed a lifetime of work.
Hasegawa’s buildings feature a lightness of touch, using simple materials and dynamic forms. She founded her own practice in 1979. After earning acclaim when she won the competition to design the Shonandai Cultural Centre in Fujisawa, Hasegawa was then commissioned to do a large number of projects across Japan including the Sumida Culture Factory, the Yamanashi Museum of Fruit, and the Fukuroi Workshop Centre.
The Royal Academy Architecture Awards judges on why they gave the prize to Itsuko Hasagawa
What I find most interesting about the architecture of Itsuko Hasegawa is the spirit of invention. Through this prize we hope to bring her the much-needed recognition she deserves.
Louisa Hutton RA, chair of the jury
About Itsuko Hasegawa
After graduating from the Department of Architecture at Kanto Gakuin University, Itsuko Hasegawa became a research student in the Department of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1979 she established Itsuko Hasegawa Atelier. Her projects include a variety of houses and public buildings. Hasegawa earned acclaim when she won first prize in the open competition to design the Shonandai Cultural Centre in Fujisawa. She was then commissioned to do a large number of projects across Japan including the Sumida Culture Factory, the Yamanashi Museum of Fruit, and the Fukuroi Workshop Centre. In 1986 she received the Design Prize from the Architectural Institute of Japan for her Bizan Hall project. Her residential projects also earned a Japan Cultural Design Award. In 1997 she was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA, in 2000 she received the Japan Art Academy Award, in 2001 she received the Honorary Degree Award at University College London and in 2006 she was elected as one of the Honorary Fellows of the AIA.
The work of Itsuko Hasegawa
Royal Academy Dorfman Award 2018
Alireza Taghaboni, Iranian architect and founder of nextoffice, was revealed as the winner of the inaugural Royal Academy Dorfman Award in 2018.
Taghaboni has been practicing architecture since 2004 and founded nextoffice in 2009. Based in Tehran, nextoffice aims to provide contemporary responses to traditional Iranian architecture, taking into account climatic conditions, the economic, political and socio-cultural context of the country and peculiarities of each project’s site. The practice’s Sharifi-ha house, which features rotating rooms that adapt to Iran’s fluctuating lifestyles and offers a critical response to building regulations and zoning by-laws, was shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival 2014.
He was commended by the judges for "achieving high quality buildings in a turbulent context."
The Royal Academy Dorfman Award hopes to discover and bring to the fore unusual and highly sophisticated work that ranges from the social to the political and the very architectural to the technical.
The work of Alireza Taghaboni
Despite the political challenges, Alireza remains rooted to the local and social issuers of his country. These uncertainties, however, do not stop him experimenting with material, form and construction, working towards his own distinctive aesthetic.
Louisa Hutton RA, chair of the jury
Rahel Shawl is founder and director of one of the leading architectural practices in Ethiopia as well as a role model, advisor and mentor for emerging architects.
Born and educated in Ethiopia, she co-founded Abba Architects in 1992, founded Raas Architects in 2004 and co-founded Equinox Property Developers in 2012.
Go Hasegawa founded his firm Go Hasegawa and Associates in 2005, just three years after graduating from the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
His many houses explore the merging of outdoor and indoor space.
Arquitectura Expandida is a design collective based in Bogotá, Colombia that builds structures of public assembly for communities that cannot afford to go through official channels for design and construction.
Founded by Ana Lopez Ortego, Harold Guyaux, Randy Orjuela, Marina Tejedor, and Felipe González, the collective was formed in 2010.
Anne Holtrop founded his practice Studio Anne Holtrop in the Netherlands in 2009 and he now also has an office in Murharraq, Bahrain.
His work ranges from models to temporary spaces, exhibitions and buildings. He designed Bahrain’s pavilion at the World EXPO2015 in Milan.
Iranian architect and painter Alireza Taghaboni has been a practicing architect since 2004 and founded nextoffice in 2009.
Based in Tehran, nextoffice's projects range from detached single-family houses to urban master plans and residential, commercial and mixed-use large-scale complexes.
The judges
Louisa Hutton OBE RA is co-founder of Sauerbruch Hutton. With projects all over Europe, the practice gained international renown for its early and comprehensive engagement with sustainability in architecture and urbanism. Sauerbruch Hutton were awarded the Erich Schelling Prize in 1998, the Fritz Schumacher Prize for Architecture in 2003, the International Honour Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2010, the Gottfried-Semper-Award in 2013 and the German Architecture Award 2015. Alongside running her practice, Hutton taught at the Architectural Association and was a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a member of the Curatorial Board of the Schelling Architecture Foundation, and was a Commissioner at CABE as well as a member of the first Steering Committee for Germany’s Bundesstiftung Baukultur. Hutton was elected as a Royal Academician in 2014.
Richard Rogers RA is the founder of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. He has designed numerous high-profile architecture projects including the Pompidou Centre in Paris (1977), Lloyds Building (1984), the European Court of Human Rights Building in Strasbourg (1995), the Millennium Dome (1999), and Cardiff’s Senedd (2005). He has been recognised with a number of awards for his work including the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (1985), the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale (2006) and the Pritzker Prize (2007). His work has also won the RIBA Stirling Prize twice – first for the Barajas Airport Terminal in 2006 and then again for a Maggie’s Centre in London in 2009. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1984. Rogers was Chairman of the Tate Gallery and Deputy Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, and is currently an Honorary Trustee of MOMA in New York. He recently published his memoir A Place for All People which documents his life, projects and ideas for a better society.
Mohsen Mostafavi is Dean and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. An architect and educator, his work focuses on modes and processes of urbanization and on the interface between technology and aesthetics. Formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, as well as Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, Mostafavi serves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Smith College Board of Trustees, and has served on the design committee of the London Development Agency (LDA) and the juries for the RIBA Gold Medal and the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Architecture. His books include Ecological Urbanism (co-edited 2010 and recently translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish), Architecture is Life (2013), Nicholas Hawksmoor: The London Churches (2015), Portman's America & Other Speculations (2017), and Ethics of the Urban: The City and the Spaces of the Political (2017).
Conrad Shawcross RA is a sculptor whose work explores subjects that lie on the borders of geometry, philosophy, and physics. Recently Shawcross has developed the scale of his practice, accomplishing major projects in architectural spaces, such as St Pancras Railway Station, and his monumental architectural intervention The Optic Cloak, at the Greenwich Peninsula. Between 2009 and 2011 Shawcross was Artist in Residence at the Science Museum in London, and in 2012 he was one of three contemporary artists invited to create works inspired by Titan’s masterpieces as part of a collaboration with the National Gallery and The Royal Opera House. His work has been exhibited across the world including solo exhibitions at The Palais de Tokyo, Pace Gallery in New York, the Careyes Foundation in Mexico and ARTMIA in Beijing.
Razia Iqbal is a BBC news presenter. She is currently one of the main presenters of Newshour – BBC World Service’s flagship daily current affairs programme – and also regularly presents The World Tonight on Radio 4. She has also presented a number of the institution’s other shows including Front Row, Woman’s Hour, and Talking Books. She was the BBC’s arts correspondent for more than a decade, covering arts and culture for both radio and television news. In 2017, Iqbal was awarded a RIBA Honorary Fellowship for her work on Dream Builders, a series interviewing leading architects including the late Zaha Hadid RA, Norman Foster RA, Richard Rogers RA, and David Adjaye RA.
Joseph Grima is the co-founder of experimental architecture and research studio Space Caviar which uses built work, exhibitions, publishing, writing and film to investigate and document contemporary models of habitation alongside social and political practice. He is the creative director of the Design Academy Eindhoven, and was curator of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015), the Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk, Belgium (2014), and the first Istanbul Design Biennial (2012).