RIBA’s Royal Gold Medal 2024 recipient, Lesley Lokko

One of the most prestigious architecture awards in the United Kingdom, RIBA, has announced the Royal Gold Medal recipient of 2024, Professor Lesley Lokko. A Ghanaian-Scottish architect, educator, and best-selling novelist, Professor Lokko is awarded this world’s highest honors in architecture- presented on behalf of His Majesty the King, for her commitment to giving significant influence for the advancement of the architecture realms by examining diverse approaches both in practices and education.  

Professor Lesley Lokko, the 2024 Royal Gold Medalist, Credit: Murdo MacLeod

Professor Lokko, who is also the recipient of the 2020 RIBA Annie Spink Award has dedicated her career to amplifying under-represented voices and examining the complex relationship between architecture, identity, race, and gender for over two decades. Her ability to send in black and minority groups in the conversation on how architects and architecture can solve the problem has successfully diffused the gap between architecture and gender and ethnic identity which has been a significant problem in this field.

She also founded the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, an independent postgraduate architecture school and a public events platform. By founding this institution, she builds a free space for people to come and engage in the conversation and contribute to the future of architecture in Africa. Besides that, she also became a curator for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale in Venice. 

Professor Lesley Lokko, the 2024 Royal Gold Medalist, Credit: Murdo MacLeod

Beyond her mere contributions in practice, she has greatly contributed to education and writing. She has taught worldwide as a visiting professor at notable universities, such as The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin. She was also the Founder and Director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg (2014–2019) and the Dean of Architecture at The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture (2019–2020), The City College of New York (CCNY). 

In writing, she has published 13 bestseller books, including Sundowners (Orion, 2004), which have been translated into 15 languages, and she also became the Editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000), the Editor-in-Chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture, and UCL Press Series Guest Editor of Design Research in Architecture. She is dedicated to giving better visions for the world through architecture, so she reserves the right to achieve this honor.

“It came as such a surprise to me. This was never on the cards. I’m delighted to be considered alongside some of the great past winners of the Royal Gold Medal. Although this is a personal award, this isn’t merely a personal triumph, this is a testament to the people and organizations I have worked with that share my goals.

I came into architecture seeking certainties, looking for answers. Instead, I found questions and possibilities, far richer, more curious, and more empathetic ways to interpret and shape the world. Architecture gave me language, in all its forms — visual, written, built, performed — and that language, in turn, has given me such hope.” said Professor Lesley Lokko to RIBA.