SANAA co-founder Kazuyo Sejima and influential Canadian architect Phyllis Lambert have been awarded the Jane Drew and Ada Louise Huxtable prizes, respectively, as a recognition of their work and commitment to design excellence and for raising the profile of women in architecture. The Jane Drew Prize for Architecture commends Kazuyo Sejima for her achievements as an architect, while the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize recognizes Phyllis Lamber’s contribution to the wider architectural industry. The two awards are presented by UK-based publications Architects’ Journal and The Architectural Review.
Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima is best known as the co-founder of the Pritzker Prize-winning office SANAA, which she established with Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo in 1995. Their portfolio includes many internationally recognized projects such as the New Museum in New York City, the renovation and extension of the Parisian “grand magasin” La Samaritaine, and the Louvre Lens gallery in France. The Sydney Modern Museum in Australia is the office’s latest project.
In 2010 Kazuyo Sejima became the first woman to curate the Architecture Sector of the Biennale di Venezia. Under the theme “People Meet in Architecture”, the exhibitions illustrated her position regarding the interaction between social and natural environments. In 2021, she was also appointed the president of the international jury for the 2021 Venice Biennale. The Jane Drew Prize is an additional recognition of Sejima’s manifold contributions to the field of architecture.
The award is named in honor of Jane Drew, an advocate for women in a male-dominated profession. Through the work of her practice, which opened shortly after the Second World War, Jane Drew also contributed to introducing the Modern Movement into the UK and is responsible for bringing Le Corbusier’s work to India.
As an architect, author, and curator, Phyllis Lambert is recognized as one of the most influential figures in architecture. Primarily known for founding the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in her hometown of Montrèal in 1979, she also acted as Director of Planning for the Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in Manhattan, a building commissioned by her family. Through the CCA, Lambert became a civic activist in Montrèal, advocating for the revitalization of neighborhoods, the construction of low-income housing, and the democratization of the process of urban planning. In 2014, she was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
The Ada Louise Huxtable prize is named after the architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, the receiver of the first Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1970. Recognized as one of the most powerful voices in the architecture of mid-century America, Huxtable advocated for the preservation of urban environments. She celebrated the vitality of the cityscape and the buildings that embraced human scale and civic history.
In previous years, the Jane Drew Prize has been awarded to architect Farshid Moussavi in 2022, Kate Macintosh in 2021, Yasmeen Lari in 2020, Elizabeth Diller in 2019, Amanda Levete in 2018, and Denise Scott Brown in 2017. Previous winners of the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize include artist Mona Hatoum in 2022, educator and writer Lesley Lokko in 2021, writer Beatriz Colomina in 2020, photographer Hélène Binet in 2019, and Dutch artist Madelon Vriesendorp in 2018.
