Professor Lesley Lokko, acclaimed Ghanaian-Scottish architect, educator, author and curator, will receive this year’s Royal Gold Medal 2024, one of the world’s highest honours for architecture.
For over two decades, Professor Lokko has devoted her career to amplifying under-represented voices and examining the complex relationship between architecture, identity and race, profoundly impacting architectural education, dialogue and discourse. As the 2024 recipient, Lesley Lokko is being recognised for her commitment to championing diverse approaches to architectural practice and education.
In 2021, Lesley Lokko founded the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, aiming to be a new model of education, research and public dialogue that unites the arts, humanities and sciences.
Prior to establishing the AFI, Lokko taught around the world and reframed architecture courses to democratise, decolonise and progress architectural education. Notable roles include Founder and Director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg and Dean of The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York. In 2023, she was awarded an OBE for services to architecture and education and was appointed curator of the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work and presented on behalf of His Majesty the King, the Royal Gold Medal is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence on the advancement of architecture.
The Royal Gold Medal 2024 will be formally presented to Lesley Lokko in London on 2 May 2024.
