RIBA Honors Álvaro Siza with 2009 Royal Gold Medal

Álvaro Siza has been announced as the RIBA’s 2009 Royal Gold Medalist. The medal will be presented at the Royal Gold Medal and Fellowships Dinner in February 2009 at a black-tie ceremony in the RIBA’s Florence Hall.

The official citation reads:

“Álvaro Siza is simply a profoundly complete architect who defies categorization. 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.

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.

Municipal Library, Viana Do Castelo, Portugal, 2007

Portuguese Pavilion at the Portugal Expo, 1998

Edificio Zaida Y Casa Patio, Granada, 2006

Álvaro Siza is, and always has been, a committed teacher and educator. He has enabled many younger architects to gain commissions through the work he was initially offered and this selflessness is one of many examples of his commitment to the greater architectural project, rather than to personal success. Unusually for an architect of such international standing, Siza has deliberately kept his studio small to ensure his attention to every project. He is generous with his appreciation of other architects.

For the inspiring and instructive body of work he has produced over 40 years, and for his immense contribution to architecture through dialogue and teaching, the RIBA, on behalf of H. M. the Queen, is honored to present the 2009 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture to Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira. We wish him many more years of fulfilment of his unique vision of the possibilities of building.”

Casa van Middelem, Dupont, Belgium, 2003

Casa en Mallorca, Spain, 2007 (Image: Duccio Malagamba)

Museum for the Ibere Camargo Foundation, Brazil, 2008

Images: Alvaro Siza Architects/RIBA