TWO of Ireland’s most prominent architects have received the world’s top award in their field in London this week.
Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, who run O’Donnell + Tuomey in Dublin, are the 2015 recipients of the Royal Gold Medal – the top architectural award in the world.
“We’re delighted to have been chosen for this unexpected honour,” they said of the win. “We’re humbled to find ourselves in such a company of heroes, architects whose work we have studied and from whose example we continue to learn.”
Irish Ambassador to Britain Daniel Mulhall presented the award, which is personally approved by the Queen, to the pair, who have been business partners since the 1980s.
It was their collaboration on Temple Bar’s Irish Film Institute that catapulted them to international recognition in the early 1990s.
Since then, the dynamic duo have turned their hand to architecture on British shores.
They designed the well-received Photographer’s Gallery in Soho as well as the London School of Economics’ Student Centre – for which they were shortlisted for a RIBA Stirling Prize.
Past winners of the Royal Gold Medal include Frank Gehry in 2000 and Sir George Gilbert Scott back in 1859.
