Brazilian leading architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha has been named as the recipient of the 2017 RIBA Gold Medal for architecture, which is the UK’s highest honour award for architecture given by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Paulo Mendes da Rocha was also awarded with two major awards this year including the Praemium Imperiale prize and the Venice Architecture Biennale Golden Lion, announced earlier this year.

RIBA praised the architect by mentioning as ''Brazil’s most celebrated living architect'' and ''contributing to Brazilian architecture with his notable cultural buildings''-and ''built in his particular Brazilian Brutalist style with exposed concrete structures and rough finishes, are widely credited with transforming the city of São Paulo,'' mentioned in the press release.

Paulo Mendes da Rocha, 87, completed his first celebrated building, the Athletic Club of São Paulo, followed by a large number of further public buildings in the city including Saint Peter Chapel (1987), the Brazilian Sculpture Museum MuBE (1988), Patriach Plaza (1992-2002), the Pinacoteca do Estado gallery (1993) and the FIESP Cultural Center (1997). Outside São Paulo, notable buildings include the Serra Dourada football stadium in Goiás (1973), Lady of the Conception Chapel in Recife (2006) and Cais das Artes arts centre in Vitória (2008).

''After so many years of work, it is a great joy to receive this recognition from the Royal Institute of British Architects for the contribution my lifetime of work and experiments have given to the progress of architecture and society. I would like to send my warmest wishes to all those who share my passion, in particular British architects, and share this moment with all the architects and engineers that have collaborated on my projects,'' said Paulo Mendes da Rocha.

“Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work is highly unusual in comparison to the majority of the world’s most celebrated architects. He is an architect with an incredible international reputation, yet almost all his masterpieces are built exclusively in his home country. Revolutionary and transformative, Mendes da Rocha’s work typifies the architecture of 1950s Brazil – raw, chunky and beautifully ‘brutal’ concrete,'' said Jane Duncan, RIBA President and chair of the selection committee.

“Paulo Mendes da Rocha is a world-class architect and a true living legend; I am delighted he will be presented with the Royal Gold Medal, one of the world’s most important honours for architecture,'' Duncan added.

The Royal Gold Medal will be presented to Paulo Mendes da Rocha in early 2017. The Brazilian architect has previously been honoured with the Mies van der Rohe Prize in 2000, Pritzker Prize in 2006. 

The 2017 Royal Gold Medal selection committee comprises RIBA President Jane Duncan with Sir Peter Cook, Neil Gillespie OBE, Victoria Thornton OBE and the 2015 Royal Gold Medallist Sheila O’Donnell.

Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved by Her Majesty The Queen and is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence “either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture”. Awarded since 1848, past Royal Gold Medallists include Zaha Hadid (2016), Frank Gehry (2000), Norman Foster (1983), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941) and Sir George Gilbert Scott (1859); Oscar Niemeyer (1998) is the only other Brazilian architect to have received the honour.

Top image: Inside Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (renovated in 1993), 2016, São Paulo, Brazil. Image courtesy of Praemium Imperiale 

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