Top 15 Most Prestigious Architecture Awards & Prizes

Architecture Awards News & Resources

• 15 Winners of the 2022 Building of the Year Awards - "With over 100,000 votes cast during the last three weeks, we are happy to present the winners of the 2022 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. This peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award showcases projects chosen by ArchDaily readers who filtered thousands of projects down to the 15 best works featured on ArchDaily in 2021."
• Aga Khan Award 2022: $1 million prize recognizes world's best new community architecture - "A serene airport, a contemporary art museum and a series of refugee community centers are among the winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, a major prize honoring new buildings in 'communities in which Muslims have a significant presence.'"
• Burkina Faso-born Kere First African to Win Pritzker Architecture Prize 2022 - "The Pritzker Prize, architecture's most prestigious award, was awarded Tuesday to Burkina Faso-born architect Diebedo Francis Kere, the first African to win the honor in its more than 40-year history."
• Irish women win Pritzker prize, architecture's highest honour - "Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, who run the practice Grafton, are just the fourth and fifth women to win the prize in its 41-year history."
• List of architecture prizes - Wikipedia.
• Stirling Prize 2023: Elizabeth Line on London-dominated shortlist - "The £18 billion transport scheme is a surprise contender to win the UK’s most prestigious prize for architecture."
• WAF Awards 2021: World's best new architecture revealed - "The World Architecture Festival (WAF) has unveiled its prestigious shortlist of the best new buildings and landscape designs from around the globe."
• WAF Awards 2022: See the world's best new architecture - "In photos: The world's best new buildings."
• World's best new buildings revealed - "RIBA International Prize 2018."

Top 15 Architecture Awards & Prizes

• AGA KHAN AWARD FOR ARCHITECTURE - established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. "Sustainability over spectacle." It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Islamic societies in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community development and improvement, restoration, reuse and area conservation, as well as landscape design and improvement of the environment.
• BRICK AWARDS - since 2004. "Celebrating the world's greatest brick architecture and craftsmanship." One of the longest established and most widely respected design awards in the U.K. The Awards recognise excellence in design and construction using brick.
• Driehaus Architecture Prize - since 2003. Global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary vernacular and classical architecture, commonly referred to as New Classical architecture. It is perceived as the alternative to the modernist Pritzker Prize.
• MIES VAN DER ROHE AWARD - or European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. Prize given biennially since 1988 by the European Union and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, 'to acknowledge and reward quality architectural production in Europe'.
• Praemium Imperiale - (lit. "World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu", is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film. These are areas of achievement not covered by the Nobel Prizes.
• PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE - since 1979. considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes. Awarded annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture."
• RIBA | ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS AWARDS - RIBA runs many awards including the Stirling Prize for the best new building of the year, the Royal Gold Medal (first awarded in 1848), which honours a distinguished body of work, and the Stephen Lawrence Prize for projects with a construction budget of less than £500,000. The RIBA also awards the President's Medals for student work, which are regarded as the most prestigious awards in architectural education, and the RIBA President's Awards for Research. The RIBA European Award was inaugurated in 2005 for work in the European Union, outside the UK. The RIBA National Award and the RIBA International Award were established in 2007.
• Royal Gold Medal - since 1848. Awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is given for a distinguished body of work rather than for one building, and is therefore not awarded for merely being currently fashionable.
• Stirling Prize - British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The RIBA Stirling Prize is presented to "the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year."
• Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture - since 1966. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture recognizes individuals for distinguished contributions to the field of architecture. The Medal in Architecture has been jointly awarded each year by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello and the University of Virginia School of Architecture since 1966.
• Vincent Scully Prize - established in 1999 by the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship or criticism in architecture, historic preservation and urban design.
• WAN AWARDS 2021 - "Now in its 13th year, the global WAN Awards recognise the outstanding works of innovative, visionary and imaginative architects worldwide." World Architecture News.
• WOLF FOUNDATION PRIZE IN THE ARTS (ARCHITECTURE) - since 1978. Awarded once a year by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation, and has been awarded since 1981; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Medicine and Physics, awarded since 1978. The Prize rotates annually between painting, music, architecture and sculpture.
• WORLD ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL AWARDS - since 2008. "Winning a WAF award, the ‘Oscars of Architecture’, is your passport to the international architecture scene. Both professionally and personally transformational, the WAF awards are your gateway to global exposure, recogniltion and success."
• WSJ Innovation Awards - "Launched in 2011, WSJ. Magazine’s Innovator Awards recognizes groundbreaking talents from a range of disciplines, including fashion, art, entertainment, architecture, design, technology, the performing arts, philanthropy, food, literature and more. As an annual event, it has blossomed into one of the Wall Street Journal’s signature franchises; the combination of special-edition print issue, red-carpet gala and multiple digital extensions reaches WSJ.’s largest global audience every year."