Farshid Moussavi wins the 2026 Soane Medal: jury looks for ethics in everyday decisions

Sir John Soane's Museum in London has awarded the 2026 Soane Medal to British-Iranian architect, writer and academic Farshid Moussavi. According to the decision announced on 28 September and reported by Architects' Journal, Moussavi will receive the medal at an event at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on 24 November 2026, where she will also give a public lecture. The museum's official website has also announced the 24 November event as a special programme celebrating Moussavi.

The Soane Medal is awarded annually by the museum to architects, educators and critics who have made a significant contribution to architecture and enriched public understanding of the field. Recipients receive a replica of the gold medal presented to Sir John Soane by the architects of England in 1835. Moussavi received the award for her outstanding contribution to “the practice, history and theory” of architecture.

Previous winners

According to Harvard GSD's announcement, previous recipients include Hanif Kara (2024), Madelon Vriesendorp, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, Peter Barber, Marina Tabassum, Denise Scott Brown, Kenneth Frampton and Rafael Moneo. The list shows that the award recognises not only architects who design buildings, but also figures who have left their mark on architectural thought and education.

Jury: “A third way between spectacle and surrender”

Architect and jury chair Amin Taha said that, for nearly 40 years, Moussavi has shown that ethics in architecture are a matter of practice, not declaration. According to Taha, a building's moral life lies in the countless decisions, large and small, that shape the everyday experience of the people who use it. Here is a brief excerpt from Taha's comments:

“In a profession inclined towards spectacle and surrender, Moussavi offers a third way: attention.”

Taha emphasised that Moussavi teaches architects they 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.

In her statement about the award, Moussavi said that being recognised by an institution whose founder clearly understood that architecture is never only about architecture was the most meaningful form of recognition for her. She described the Soane Museum as one of the clearest arguments for how a building can be a home, a workplace and a way of thinking about the world at the same time. She added that challenging the divide between the personal and professional, the aesthetic and intellectual, and the building and its contents has long informed her practice, teaching and writing. Moussavi also coordinated the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition last year.

From FOA to Farshid Moussavi Architecture

Born in Iran, Moussavi studied at Harvard GSD, University College London and the University of Dundee. She served as head of the Institute of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and taught at institutions including the Architectural Association, the Berlage Institute, Harvard, UCLA, Princeton and Columbia. She is currently a professor in practice of architecture at Harvard GSD.

Before founding the London- and Paris-based Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA) in 2011, Moussavi was co-director of Foreign Office Architects (FOA) for 18 years. FOA's best-known work is the Yokohama International Passenger Terminal, completed in 2002. FMA's completed projects include the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, La Folie Divine residences in Montpellier, the Îlot 19 housing project in La Défense–Nanterre, Ismaili Center Houston, completed in November 2025, and the Victoria Beckham store in London's Mayfair.

Housing, reuse and books

Moussavi is the author of four books; the most recent, “Architecture and Micropolitics,” was published in 2022. Her research focuses on social housing and reuse. At GSD, she teaches courses titled “Housing as an Ecology of Care” and “Housing Matters”; in the fall 2026 semester, she is leading a housing studio with Hanif Kara and Philip Denny. In 2024, she curated an exhibition titled “Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art.”

Implications for design and representation

The exhibition title offers an interesting framework for people working in digital design: thinking of architecture as a sequence of instructions written to be carried out. This approach has a natural affinity with computational design, where rules and parameters determine the result. Moussavi's ethical emphasis on user experience also raises a question for visualisation practice: do presentation images show the building's everyday use, or only an impressive moment? The jury's criticism of “spectacle” is worth considering in the context of render culture, too.

The Soane Museum itself provides a fitting backdrop to this discussion. Recently restored and opened to public tours for the first time in its history, the museum's Drawing Office is, according to the museum, the oldest surviving example of its kind. In Soane's time, architectural representation centred on hand-drawn plans; today, digital models and renders largely perform the same role. The question that remains is how honestly a representation depicts the building and the people who will use it.