2023 National Prizes: Gold Medal

Award | ArchitectureAU Editorial

3 May 2023

Kerstin Thompson

Image: Jessica Lindsay

Jury citation

The Gold Medal is the Australian Institute of Architects’ highest honour. It recognizes distinguished service by architects who have designed or executed buildings of high merit, produced work of great distinction resulting in the advancement of architecture, or endowed the profession of architecture in a distinguished manner. The 2023 recipient of the Gold Medal is Kerstin Thompson.

Thompson is an outstanding architect whose design practice is renowned internationally as a significant and innovative reference point in Australian architecture and urban design. For more than three decades, she has contributed generously to architectural discourse across the country through her work as a designer, educator and highly respected keynote speaker. Further, she has displayed dedication to the profession through extensive efforts with the Australian Institute of Architects, including “captaincy” at the 2019 National Architecture Conference, creative directorship of the 2005 National Architecture Conference, co-curatorship of Australia’s official contribution to the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, and participation in countless design panels and juries – all while leading her practice with a level of skill, consideration and aesthetic to which many aspire.

Bundanon by Kerstin Thompson Architects.

Spanning varying scales, from large public projects to intricate domestic architecture, Thompson’s sublime work is at once generous, bold and highly nuanced. Taking its cues from the context, it creates a built form that allows the setting to take centre stage. Thompson employs a sleight of hand that makes every moment one of discovery: at Bundanon, the landscape is amplified, while at the Victorian College of the Arts, heritage takes on a newfound vibrancy. Her interventions are taut and beautiful in their own right, delivering a sense of wonder and inquiry to even the most experienced of her peers.

Integrating sustainable principles and a multidisciplinary approach to architecture, Thompson’s work is framed by a deep understanding of ecology and landscape. She has set precedents in her determination to extend the useful life of existing buildings. Finally, the distinctive economy and lean sensibility of her designs highlight the value and beauty of finite resources.

The Stables, VCA by Kerstin Thompson Architects.

In the field of heritage architecture, Thompson’s work is particularly notable in the inventive ways that it addresses memory and establishes resonance between old and new. The Melbourne Holocaust Museum employs a finely detailed yet infinitely simple recessed line to circumscribe the historic building; a line has never worked so hard, and yet appeared so effortless, in carrying the immense burden of joining old with new. Internally, the building’s focus on light serves to keep memory alive, so that society might never forget the lessons of the past.

Thompson is the creative design director across all projects at Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). The practice itself is an exemplar studio that has encouraged young practitioners to venture out and shape new practices around strongly held principles. Thompson founded KTA after formative experiences at Melbourne practice Robinson Chen, commencing with a series of residential commissions. These were immediately recognized as assured, inventive and part of the continuum of Melbourne’s residential architecture scene established generations earlier.

KTA’s contribution to the architectural fabric of our built environment has been recognized by numerous awards at state, national and international level. The practice was the recipient of the 2020 Victorian Architecture Medal, the state’s highest honour and a recognition of excellence across all award categories, for the Town Hall Broadmeadows project; KTA is the first practice with a sole female founder to have been awarded the medal. In 2022, KTA was awarded the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture for Bundanon Art Museum and Bridge, a project involving new site-wide works that are equal parts subtle and dramatic, preserving and transforming. The works, which show how architecture can be used to provide pathways out of the current state of climate crisis partially brought about by our built environment, was also awarded a National Award for Sustainable Architecture.

The Australian Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal is awarded in honour of the quality and breadth of Thompson’s work, a design ethos that favours subtle expression and graciousness over force, and her propensity to address some of the biggest issues of our time. Through her work in academia and as a role model for women everywhere, she is an inspiration to the profession as a whole and to future generations of architects.