And the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025 goes to... SANAA!

SANAA has been revealed as the winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025. The collaborative practice of Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa has been leading in its field with its ethereal, user-centric designs, which can be found in their native country and across the globe. The accolade, one of architecture's highest honours internationally, is presented on behalf of His Majesty the King and has been offered to SANAA for their 'work to reshape the global design landscape, creating spaces that bring simplicity, light and elegance to the fore,' the RIBA explains in a statement.

RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025 winner: SANAA

The studio has been honoured with the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2025 for its expert place-making and commitment to crafting architecture that inspires connection and collaboration. The studio responded to the announcement, saying: 'We are delighted and very honoured to receive the Royal Gold Medal. We have always believed that architecture can transform and repair environments, helping us to relate to our surroundings, nature and each other.

'Throughout our careers, we have tried to make spaces that bring people together, inviting them to imagine new ways of living and learning collectively.  Architecture is always teamwork, and we are very grateful to everyone that has given us opportunities to develop these ideas over the years, and to all those people that have worked tirelessly with us to realise them. This is a very happy moment for us, thank you.'

Starting their joint practice in 1995, just a year before Wallpaper's own launch in 1996, the studio was honoured in our 20th-anniversary issue in 2016. A version of the article celebrating the work of its founders, originally published in our October 2016 edition and featuring an interview with Sejima, follows below. It highlights the studio's important contribution to the global architecture field.

SANAA: an appreciation

By the early 1990s, Kazuyo Sejima already had experience at Toyo Ito’s office, her own studio and a Young Architect of the Year award from the Japan Institute of Architects under her belt. But it was after setting up SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa in 1995 that her career really took off, upscaling to major cultural commissions which transformed the duo into an international go-to choice for mesmerizingly barely-there, ethereal architecture.

Their signature style of strong shapes and clean lines that at the same time appear flowing and delicate has helped define 21st-century Japanese architecture. It is all about the experience for SANAA, although priorities have shifted somewhat since the early days of the practice.

‘Our designs are not driven by what you can do with architecture itself, but by an interest in the way people experience space as a relationship between programme, city and surrounding landscape,’ Sejima says. ‘In the past, I would try to understand the overall character of a building’s environment and use this abstract idea to develop a design. Today, I try to create spaces that are more precisely adapted to the variable character of a neighbourhood.'

The practice has produced gems such as the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, the Rolex Learning Center, the Louvre-Lens and Grace Farms. The SANAA-designed New Museum in New York (2007) and the Zollverein School in Germany (2006) added to their international portfolio.

From there, commissions and honours poured in; from SANAA’s Serpentine Pavilion in London in 2009 and Sejima's appointment to direct the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale to their joint Pritzker Prize win in the same year, and participation in the Rolex Mentor scheme in 2012.

The latter also flagged up their interest in nurturing young talent; Sejima has been involved in teaching since the early 2000s. ‘Young people come up with new ideas constantly – and this can, of course, be exciting,’ she says. ‘But I have recently realised there are things we can imagine only as we grow older, making these relationships very effective during a design process.’

Now approaching 70 and 60 respectively, Sejima and Nishizawa show no sign of slowing down. More recent projects include La Samaritaine department store in Paris; the Hitachi City Hall in Sejima's home prefecture of Ibaraki; and the Inujima Art House Project, aimed at encouraging people to settle on the small island in the Seto Inland Sea. Their New Kagawa Sports Arena in Japan is expected to open later in 2025.

sanaa.co.jp