Nova Scotia architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, FRAIC, founding partner of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, has been selected to receive the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s 2015 Gold Medal. The RAIC’s highest honor, the Gold Medal is awarded annually to architects who have had a “significant and lasting contribution to Canadian architecture.”
“His work is universally recognized as pure, dignified, poetic and beautiful,” said the jury. “His work comes from an intimate connection with his communities.”
With more than 100 awards, 300 publications, and 100 exhibitions, MacKay-Lyons has built a reputation as “an authentic and original voice in the development of a contemporary expression of traditional regional architecture,” says the jury. Both from his office in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he founded his practice in 1985, and as the founder of Ghost Lab, MacKay-Lyons continues to be a “major influence on current and future generations of architects.”
He also currently serves as a professor at Dalhousie University, where he has taught for over 30 years. Throughout this time, he has held 17 endowed academic chairs and visiting professorships, and given more than 200 public lectures.
“It is a great honor to be recognized by one’s peers,” said Mr. MacKay-Lyons. “In an increasingly globalized world it’s nice to reaffirm a way of making architecture about place – its landscape, climate and material culture.”
MacKay-Lyons will be presented the Gold Medal at a ceremony at the RAIC/AAA Festival of Architecture, which takes place in Calgary June 3 to 6.
The jury members were Peter Busby, FRAIC, Past Gold Medalist; Paule Boutin, AP/FIRAC, RAIC Past President; Tyler Sharp, MRAIC, Past Recipient of the Young Architect Award; Siamak Hariri, FRAIC, and Martin Houle, MIRAC, founder of the architecture website Kollectif.net.
