Sejima and Nishizawa of SANAA were presented with the Royal Gold Medal for architecture by RIBA at a ceremony in London.
On October 3, 2025, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA were formally presented with the Royal Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) at a ceremony held in London. The Royal Gold Medal, personally approved by the British monarch, is one of the highest lifetime honors in world architecture, first awarded in 1848 and previously granted to figures such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Zaha Hadid.
The award recognized the pair's sustained influence on global architectural practice over more than three decades, citing their distinctive contribution to redefining spatial transparency, lightness, and the relationship between architecture and its social context.
The ceremony provided a further high-profile platform for Sejima, reinforcing her status as one of the few women to receive architecture's most elite lifetime achievement honors, joining an exclusive group alongside Zaha Hadid as one of very few women recipients of the medal.
This recognition, arriving fifteen years after her Pritzker Prize win, underscored the enduring relevance of SANAA's design philosophy and Sejima's ongoing role as a mentor and leading voice shaping the next generation of architects worldwide.