Farshid Moussavi wins 2026 Soane Medal for architecture

British-Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi has won the 2026 Soane Medal, awarded by Sir John Soane's Museum for her "sustained and rigorous" contribution to architecture through building, teaching and writing.

Moussavi, who founded Farshid Moussavi Architects in 2011 and teaches at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, becomes the 10th winner of the award, established in 2017.

The jury, chaired by architect Amin Taha, praised Moussavi's ethical approach to the discipline. "For nearly four decades, Farshid Moussavi has demonstrated that ethics in architecture is not a matter of proclamation but of practice – that a building's moral life resides in the countless decisions, large and small, through which it shapes the everyday experience of those who use it," Taha said.

"In a profession often tempted by spectacle on one side and resignation on the other, Moussavi charts a third path: attentiveness," he continued. "She teaches that architects cannot control how their buildings will be used or perceived, and that this uncertainty is not a limitation but an ethical opening, an invitation to design with humility, curiosity and care for lives other than one's own."

Taha concluded: "It is for this sustained and rigorous inquiry, pursued simultaneously through building, teaching and writing, that the jury awards her the 2026 Soane Medal."

The annual medal honours the museum's founder, Sir John Soane, and his goal of drawing attention to the importance of architecture in people's lives.

Moussavi's notable buildings include the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and the Ismaili Center in Houston, completed last year. Her studio also designed Victoria Beckham's flagship store on Dover Street in London, the Harrods Toy Department, La Folie Divine apartments in Montpellier and Îlot 19 La Défense-Nanterre housing in Paris. At her previous practice, Foreign Office Architects, she completed the Yokohama International Port Terminal in Japan in 2002.

In her response, Moussavi connected the award to the museum's own character. "To be recognised by an institution whose founder understood so clearly that architecture is never only about architecture is, for me, the most meaningful kind of acknowledgement, and one I receive with both delight and a sense of genuine connection to this place," she said.

"The Soane Museum has always felt to me like one of the most precise arguments in architecture: that a building can be simultaneously a home, a practice, and a way of thinking about the world, and that architecture is inseparable from the objects, histories, and ideas that surround it."

She added: "What strikes me most is this refusal of separation: between the personal and the professional, between the aesthetic and the intellectual, between the building and its contents. These are questions that have preoccupied my own practice, teaching, and writing for a long time."

Moussavi was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1965. She trained as an architect at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, University College London and the University of Dundee. She formerly headed the Institute of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and has taught at the Architectural Association in London, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Hoger Architectuur Instituut Sint-Lucas in Gent, UCLA, Princeton and Columbia University.

In 2022 she received the Jane Drew Prize for elevating the profile of women in architecture. Previous Soane Medal winners include artist and OMA co-founder Madelon Vriesendorp in 2025 and structural engineer Hanif Kara in 2024.

Moussavi will receive the Soane Medal at the Royal Academy in London on 24 November 2026.