RIBA Charles Jencks Award
The RIBA Charles Jencks Award was established with prize money awarded to Charles Jencks from the Nara Gold Medal, which he received in 1992.
Charles Jencks graciously donated this prize money to RIBA to set up an endowment fund, the interest from which was initially used for an exchange programme between British and Japanese architects.
The remit of the fund was changed in 2003, and instead of cultural exchange, the award celebrates architects who excel in both architectural theory and practice. The prize poses a ‘theory of architectural theory’ that is not only ‘theory as written text,’ but instead it offers theory as a creative force which drives architecture practice from outside of direct architectural production.
RIBA Charles Jencks Award 2025 recipient
The artistic research practice DAAR, established by Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, has been given the award for a series of works — including art exhibitions, built architectural structures, reimagined learning spaces, and books promoting justice and equality. Over the last two decades they have developed a body of work that is both theoretically ambitious and deeply engaged in the pursuit of justice and equality.
Founder of the Jencks Foundation, Lily Jencks said:
“We are thrilled to award the RIBA Charles Jencks Award 2025 to DAAR and are looking forward to their lecture.
The award celebrates architecture’s multiple intelligences; that it is not only building or design that is important, but a sincere dedication to theory and research that situates architecture in its wider social, economic and political context. DAAR have a long-standing commitment to the architectural and learning practices of decolonisation: propagated through exhibitions, teaching and publishing. This research driven art practice runs in parallel to significant building projects, creating a powerful body of work that is both theoretically and practically engaged with architecture’s effort to redress injustice.”
About the Charles Jencks Award
In 2003, the investment purpose of the fund was changed to create an annual award with a remit that has remained untouched since then: to reward an individual (or practice) who has recently made a major contribution simultaneously to the theory and practice of architecture.
In addition to prize money, the recipient delivers a lecture at RIBA's 66 Portland Place in London.
RIBA remains grateful to the family of Charles Jencks for their support of ideas in architecture, and their enthusiasm about the power of finely conceived design to move emotions and provoke thought.
Selection process
The selection process starts in April or May of each year, when members of a judging panel comprising the RIBA President and other individuals agreed by the Jencks family and RIBA are invited to submit up to three nominations each.
A meeting then takes place in May or June at RIBA, where judges are requested to support their nominations and agree on a recipient.
Past recipients of the RIBA Charles Jencks Award
- 2023: Dogma
- 2022: Forensic Architecture
- 2021: Anupama Kundoo
- 2019: Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril, Ensamble Studio
- 2018: Alejandro Aravena
- 2016: Níall McLaughlin
- 2015: Herzog & de Meuron
- 2013: Benedetta Tagliabue
- 2012: Rem Koolhaas
- 2011: Eric Owen Moss
- 2010: Stephen Holl
- 2009: Charles Correa
- 2008: Wolf Prix
- 2007: Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, UN Studio
- 2006: Zaha Hadid
- 2005: Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi, Foreign Office Architects
- 2004: Peter Eisenman
- 2003: Cecil Balmond
For more information, please email RIBA Education.
