Angela Davis and Iwona Buczkowska named winners of the 2024 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize and Jane Drew Prize for Architecture

The Jane Drew Prize for Architecture and Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture winners have been announced today by UK-based publications Architects’ Journal and The Architectural Review as part of their annual W Awards program, which is celebrating its 12th year in 2024.

Polish-born French architect Iwona Buczkowska, founder of the 44-year-old Paris studio Atelier Iwona Buczkowska, was announced as the 2024 Jane Drew Prize for Architecture. Her work surrounding social housing in France was cited as the basis for her recognition, exemplified best by the mass timber Cité Pierre Sémard in the Paris suburbs that was her first commission following the completion of her studies at the École Spéciale d’Architecture.

Speaking of the influential designer, Manon Mollard, Editor of The Architectural Review, said: “Iwona Buczkowska is both a pioneer of timber construction and a fierce defender of the right to good housing. Rejecting standardization, she prefers arcs and oblique planes to create intimate and brightly lit homes, and encourages us to think of architecture’s contribution to social ecology. Buczkowska’s buildings need to be preserved, and her ideas celebrated.”

She was joined by the legendary American political activist and scholar Angela Davis, an icon for women and a champion of progressive social change globally, who was named the winner of the 2024 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize.

Davis has been a prominent figure in American life since the Vietnam War era and enjoyed a noted academic career at institutions in France and the United States, including the University of California, Santa Cruz and Rutgers University, and was noted for her work surrounding prison abolition — a topic that has been on the radar of architects for decades in both the United States and abroad.

Speaking of her impact within architecture, Eleanor Beaumont, Deputy Editor of The Architectural Review, said: "Angela Davis’s activism and leadership is as relevant and pertinent to architecture as it has ever been. Her work highlights the complicity of architecture as a tool of violence and encourages architects to advocate for spatial justice. Davis continues to speak truth to power, setting an example for architects around the world."

The pair join Canadian Centre for Architecture founder Phyllis Lambert and SANAA co-founder Kazuyo Sejima, who were named the winners of the W Awards' 11th edition last year.