Àlvaro Siza wins 2009 RIBA Gold Medal

The Portuguese architect Àlvaro Siza has been announced as the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medallist.

He will be presented with the Medal at the Royal Gold Medal and Fellowships Dinner at a ceremony in the RIBA’s Florence Hall in February 2009 and will give a lecture the following day. At the council meeting, RIBA president Sunand Prasad described Siza as being „a profoundly complete architect who defies categorisation“ and observed that in his buildings „it is the relationships between the elements of the architecture that is given primacy rather than the shape or texture of the elements themselves.“ The award honours his work that has been produced over the past 40 years. His only structure in Britain was a temporary Serpentine Gallery Pavilion built in 2005. Some of his major projects, however, include the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto (1997), the Santa Maria Church at Marco de Canavezes (1996), both in Portugal and the recently completed Museum for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre in Brazil.