Dutch artist and OMA co-founder Madelon Vriesendorp has been awarded the 2025 Soane Medal for Architecture for "influencing the architects of today and tomorrow."

"Many of Vriesendorp's surrealist, mystical, and humorous photographs have become iconic and continue to influence architects of today and tomorrow," commented Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.  

The video is by Issabella Orlando of Aetia Studio

In 1975, she was one of the founders of OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) together with Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, and Zoe Zenghelis. 

Since its establishment in 2017, Dutch artist Madelon Vriesendorp has been the first female artist from the UK to receive the coveted Soane Medal.

Après L’Amour. Photography courtesy of the Madelon Vriesendorp

Her work has given architectural theories whimsical and irreplaceable identities over the years, contributing to the explanation of intricate concepts behind Modern and Post-Modern architecture through images fueled by her own distinct imagination in which buildings possess human characteristics and inner lives.

On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, she will receive her medal at the Royal Academy in London, where she will give an open-to-all lecture.

Sir John Soane's dedication to promoting a greater awareness of the fundamental role that architecture plays in people's lives is upheld via the yearly Soane Medal. Replicas of the original gold medal that the "Architects of England" gave Sir John Soane in 1835 are given to the winners.

Captive Globe. Photography courtesy of Madelon Vriesendorp

"Soane has influenced my work as an artist, my method, and my approach to creative collaborations"

"Rightly or wrongly, artists and architects are often regarded as the ‘legitimate’ arbiters of beauty. Classical forms and ancient objects found in the ruins of earlier civilizations traditionally provide our inspiration. These connections often feel more personal than material – we are inspired less by the objects themselves than by the inspirations of others. It is a cascade of inspiration," said Madelon Vriesendorp. 

"When I first visited the Soane Museum at 19 I found true inspiration. Maybe even a kindred spirit. The building is magnificent. You are engulfed in a cornucopia of art and artefacts. Above all else, it is a work of the imagination," she continued. 

Charles Jencks and Madelon Vriesendorp. Photography courtesy of Madelon Vriesendorp

"Soane has influenced my work as an artist, my method, and my approach to creative collaborations. His museum gave me legitimacy to surround myself with my own very personal choice of objects, gathered over a lifetime to form an idiosyncratic autobiography." 

"It is a great honour to be awarded the Soane Medal and to find myself in such illustrious company, and I am extremely grateful to the judges and Trustees of the Museum," Vriesendorp added.

Flagrant Delit. Photography courtesy of the Madelon Vriesendorp

In addition to previous winners Hanif Kara, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, Peter Barber, Marina Tabassum, Denise Scott Brown, Kenneth Frampton, and Rafael Moneo, Vriesendorp was chosen by a panel of eminent judges that included architects, critics, and curators. 

The panel was chaired by Amin Taha, a trustee of Sir John Soane's Museum.

Vriesendorp, who was born in Holland in 1945, attended Central St. Martin's in London before relocating to New York in 1972, where she co-founded OMA alongside Rem Koolhaas and Elia & Zoe Zenghelis. In order to promote the firm's work, she created paintings here that were used on magazine and book covers.

Netherlands Dance Theatre. Photography courtesy of the Madelon Vriesendorp

Among the works created during this period was the famous Flagrant Delit, which shows a romantic tale between the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, both of which are in bed under the Statue of Liberty's torch as the rest of the New York cityscape looks on.

The painting was used for the front cover of Koolhaas's Delirious New York, which examined the city's urban planning during the preceding century and became known as the OMA manifesto. Later, Vriesendorp and Teri When-Damisch would work together to create the image into an animated movie.

As OMA's reputation grew from imaginative designs to competition entries and ultimately realized buildings, like the Netherlands Dance Theatre in the Hague, which features a painting by Vriesendorp, the firm's humorous and surreal imagery began to be associated with OMA.

Vriesendorp's contribution to architecture has finally been acknowledged in recent years, and her impact on one of the most well-known architectural firms of the 20th century is now more appreciated. When it debuted in 2008, the exhibition World of Madelon Vriesendorp, which included many of her pieces throughout the years, was a great success. It was displayed at the Swiss Architectural Museum, the Architectural Association, Aedes Berlin, and Venice's Art Biennale, among other venues.

Her enduring contribution to architecture and the legacy of her designs, photographs, and paintings are now acknowledged by the Soane Medal.

"As Sir John Soane had Joseph Gandy as an architect-cum-artist to help determine his creations through Gandy’s atmospheric watercolours, so architects Rem Koolhaas and Charles Jencks have collaborated with Madelon to draw on her visionary creativity to bring an added dimension to their practice," said Will Gompertz, Deborah Loeb Brice Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum. 

"The fact that students today are inspired by Madelon’s art and approach – a combination of humour and intellectual rigour – is a mark of the continued relevance and resonance of her work," Gompertz added.

OMA Press Review. Image courtesy of Madelon Vriesendorp

"The importance of Madelon’s work is hard to overestimate but incredibly difficult to characterize. A handful of her images persist in so many of our memories as to be canonical. They represent a radical turning point in architectural debate, but they are only a small part of the ongoing importance of her work," said Ingrid Schroder, Director of the Architectural Association and Soane Medal Juror. 

"For decades, Madelon’s paintings, drawings, objects, and even her casual conversation, reveal unspoken truths and absurdities. She is architecture’s best satirist, holding a mirror up to our ever self-serious profession with wry kindness," Schroder added. 

Netherlands Dance Theatre Mural. Photography courtesy of the Madelon Vriesendorp

Since the early 1800s, Sir John Soane's house and collection at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields have been housed in a national museum. The Museum, which was created by the famous architect Sir John Soane and is stocked with his world-class collection of paintings, sculptures, artifacts, and models, has kept its fabric and design from when Soane passed away in 1837.

Last year, structural engineer and AKT II co-founder and design director Hanif Kara was named the winner of the 2024 Soane Medal for Architecture. 

The top image in the article: Madelon Vriesendorp. Photography © Tilly Buckroyd.

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