Toyo Ito wins 2017 UIA Gold Medal

Since 1961, the UIA (International Union of Architects) Prizes has distinguished professional architects around the world for their qualities, talents, and actions that have had an international impact on the field. For 2017, Toyo Ito was awarded with the Gold Medal, the UIA's highest honor awarded to a living architect who was nominated by their peers. The Japan Institute of Architects selected Ito as their nominee. 

Four more architects were also presented with 2017 UIA Prizes:

The Auguste Perret Prize for Applied Technology in Architecture: Nikolay Shumakov (Russia), nominated by the UIA’s Russian Member Section.

The Jean Tschumi Prize for Architectural Criticism or Architectural Education: Professor Ashraf M Salama (Egypt), nominated by the UIA’s Egyptian Member Section.

The Robert Matthew Prize for the Improvement of the Quality of Human Settlements: Carin Smuts (South Africa), nominated by the UIA’s French Section.

The Vassilis Sgoutas Prize for inventive, implemented architectural solutions for reducing poverty and indigence: Hoang Thuc Hao (Vietnam), nominated by the UIA’s Vietnamese Section

The Sir Patrick Abercrombie Prize for Town-Planning or Territorial Development had no winner this year.

Awarded every three years, the Gold Medal has an esteemed roster of winners including I.M. Pei, Alvaro Siza Vieira, Teodoro González de León, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, and Rafael Moneo, to name a few.

The winners will be presented with their medals during an awards ceremony on September 6, at the 25th UIA World Congress in Seoul.

The 2017 jury included: President Esa Mohamed (Malaysia), Past President Albert Dubler (France), Secretary General Thomas Vonier (USA), Treasurer Fabian Llisterri(Spain), and Vice-Presidents David Falla (UK), Deniz Incedayi(Turkey), Carlos Alvarez (Costa Rica), Yolanda Reyes (Philippines) and Ali Hayder (Sudan).