On Oct. 6, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) named I.M. Pei as the recipient of its Royal Gold Medal, which is awarded for lifetime achievement in architecture. Pei, who was nominated for the prize by David Adjaye, will receive the award at a February 2010 RIBA event in London.
"Seldom has such a reward been so overdue or so just," said RIBA president Ruth Reed in a press release. It is the latest in a long series of professional honors for the 92-year-old Pei, co-founder of New York–based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, who has also receive the Arnold Brunner Award (1963), the Thomas Jefferson Medal (1976), the AIA Gold Medal (1979), and many others.
"It is a great honor to receive the Royal Gold Medal," Pei is quoted as saying in the press release. "I am humbled indeed to read the names of those who have preceded me as recipients." Past winners of the award, which was inaugurated in 1848 by Queen Victoria, include Sir Edwin Lutyens, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Ove Arup, Richard Rogers, and Oscar Niemeyer.
