Architectural and art historian, critic and thinker Joseph Rykwert became the next winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, whose influence on architectural discourse, which began in the 1960s, is difficult to overestimate. Previous Gold Medal winners Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and - especially actively - David Chipperfield have acted for his award.
Rikvert himself, the author of numerous books from “Ideas of the City” (1963) to “Seduction by the Place” (2002), in his own words, accepted the medal not as a well-deserved award, but as a wonderful gift from colleagues, giving weight to his words, to which otherwise he couldn't count. He also mentioned that it is especially valuable for him to receive it from architects and builders, and not from fellow writers: this means that his ideas turned out to be relevant for practitioners.
In addition to Rikvert, theorists and historians who have received the RIBA Gold Medal include Nikolai Pevzner and Colin Rowe.
According to RIBA, the customer of the year is the National Trust, which takes care of British monuments of architecture and nature. The best client of architects is chosen from among those who ordered the buildings - laureates of various RIBA awards from organizations and individuals, while also taking into account the awards of their objects in previous years. National Trust, among other things, commissioned the shortlisted Sterling 2013
The Giant's Trail Visitor Center in Northern Ireland, by heneghan peng architects.
For the second year in a row, the Lubetkin Prize for the best project of a RIBA member architect outside the EU was awarded to Wilkinson Eyre, this time for the greenhouses of Singapore's Marina Bay South Park. These are the largest such climate-controlled structures in the world (20,280 m2), but their function is no less interesting: protecting the plants of alpine meadows and other cool zones from the tropical climate of Singapore.
The Manser Medal for Best Private House of the Year went to Slip House in Brixton, south London. Carl Turner Architects "folded" it from three blocks: in the lower one there is a studio, above there are living quarters, and in the third one is hidden a garden surrounded by high walls in the entire roof area.
The Stephen Lawrence Award went to Montpellier Kindergarten in London, by AY architects. The building area is only 136 m2. This award was established in 1993 in memory of a teenager killed by hooligans, who dreamed of becoming an architect. She celebrates small projects with budgets under a million pounds, done by aspiring professionals.
