The Women in Architecture awards (also known as the W Awards) celebrate the “exemplary work” by women and non-binary people, from designing significant new buildings to contributing to the wider architectural culture.
Delivered in partnership with The Architectural Review and the Architects’ Journal, the W Awards promote equity and diversity in the architectural profession, inspiring change through recognition and representation.
Japanese practice SANAA (behind the recently completed Sydney Modern) co-founder Kazuyo Sejima has received the Jane Drew Prize for her commitment to design excellence that has helped raise the profile of women in architecture.
The prize is named after English modernist architect Dame Jane Drew (1911–1996), who was an advocate for and an inspiration to women in a male-dominated profession.
Sejima cofounded SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo in 1995, and her practice received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2010, making Sejima the second woman in history to receive the prestigious award after Zaha Hadid.
The Jane Drew Prize is awarded annually as part of the W Awards, with previous recipients including British-Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi, Scottish architect Kate Macintosh, and Pakistan’s first female architect Yasmeen Lari.
Phyllis Lambert, 1998.
Image: Courtesy of the Canadian Centre for Architecture
Canadian architect, conservationist and critic Phyllis Lambert has received the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture, awarded to individuals working in the wider architectural industry who have made a significant contribution to architecture and the built environment.
Now 96, Lambert commissioned Mies van der Rohe to design the Seagram Building in the 1950s and founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 1979. She has written a number of books, including most recent Observation Is a Constant That Underlies All Approaches (2023), and is working on another, How Does Your City Grow, which will be published later this year.
This award takes its name from architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable (1921–2013), who was the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1970.
Sejima will give a talk at the W Lunch, taking place on 3 March at Battersea Arts Centre, during which the winners of the Moira Gemmill Prize and MJ Long Prize will be announced. For more information visit the W Programme website.
