Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023

Royal Gold Medal 2023 recipient: Yasmeen Lari
Save
Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023

Information

ArchiDiaries’ news announces that RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) is pleased to nominate Ar. Yasmeen Lari as a recipient of the Royal Gold Medal 2023, one of the world’s highest honours for the architecture fraternity. 

One of the world’s highest accolades for architecture, the Royal Gold Medal is approved by the monarch and awarded to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence on the advancement of architecture. This award – the first to be personally approved by His Majesty The King – acknowledges Yasmeen Lari’s work championing zero carbon self-build concepts for displaced populations.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Yasmeen Lari outside Women’s Centre, Pakistan ©Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

On April 27, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced Pakistani architect and activist Yasmeen Lari as the 2023 recipient of its prestigious Royal Gold Medal. Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by the Monarch and is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence on the advancement of architecture.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
LOG Shelter © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

With a long and illustrious career, Yasmeen Lari has been a revolutionary force in Pakistan. She has had an immeasurable influence on the trajectory of architecture and humanitarian work in the country. After officially retiring in 2000, she transferred her attention to creating accessible, environmentally friendly construction techniques to help people below the poverty line and communities displaced by natural disasters and the impact of climate change. She is arguably Pakistan’s most well-known living architect and the first woman to practice the profession in the country. After receiving the Royal Gold medal, Ar. Yasmeen Lari will join a developing list of female Royal Gold medalists that includes, Shelly Mcnamara and Yvonne Farrel of Grafton Architects, Zaha Hadid, Ray Eames and many more.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Building an emergency shelter: construction of the bamboo structure © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Yasmeen is also known as an ‘Architect for the Poorest of the Poor’ and a champion of women’s rights and a proponent of zero carbon footprint. She is Pakistan’s first female architect and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan. Yasmeen established Barefoot Social Architecture (BASA) that incorporates tenets of social and ecological justice for empowering marginalized sections of society using methodologies that draw upon tradition and tread lightly on the planet. By providing training in low-tech, participatory, and disaster-resilient methods, she has enabled a large number of disaster-affected communities, particularly women, to become self-reliant.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Zero Carbon Cultural Centre © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Yasmeen graduated from Oxford Brookes University in 1963 and was elected to RIBA in 1969. She became President of Institute of Architects Pakistan (1978); first Chair of Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) (1983); and, Founding Chair of INTBAU Pakistan (2018). Her namesake architectural firm designed some of the most iconic projects in the country until Lari retired in 2000 to focus on heritage conservation and humanitarian architecture. She has conserved structures at Makli and the Lahore Fort (both World Heritage sites) as well as 19th Century British Colonial buildings in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. She was included in the 60 women who have contributed the most towards UNESCO’s objectives.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Completed shelter, with limecrete walls and matting roof © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

RIBA President Simon Allford said:

“It was an honour to chair the committee that selected Yasmeen Lari. An inspirational figure, she moved from a large practice centred on the needs of international clients to focusing solely on humanitarian causes. Lari’s mission during her ‘second’ career has empowered the people of Pakistan through architecture, engaging users in design and production. She has shown us how architecture changes lives for the better.  

Lari’s work in championing zero carbon and zero waste construction is exemplary. She has reacted imaginatively and creatively making affordable projects that address the real and often urgent need for accommodation, and basic services, but with generosity and an eye for the potential of everyday materials and crafts to make architecture at all scales. Her way of working also sets out to address the physical and psychological damage caused by major natural disasters – disasters that sadly inevitably will be ever more prevalent in our densely populated and climate challenged planet.”

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
PSO House © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Official citation on Yasmeen Lari by the 2023 RIBA Honours Committee: 

Having studied in the UK at Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes), Yasmeen Lari took the decision to return to Pakistan where she became the country’s first female architect. She then overcame considerable challenges to establish her own commercially successful practice working for major government, business, and financial institutions.  

Whilst recognising the importance of her role in practice, as a symbol of change in Pakistan, it is the work she has undertaken since her retirement in 2000 that the Royal Gold Medal celebrates. 

In the last twenty-three years Lari and The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which she founded with her husband, have reacted imaginatively and creatively to the physical and psychological damage that a number of major natural disasters; earthquakes, floods and conflicts have inflicted on the people of Pakistan. Her work is distinguished by the fact that it has focused on developing robust, intelligent yet simple, architectural designs that allow those who are in distress to build for their own needs using the available debris of disaster. This is a very different, but also very relevant, model of re-use and reinvention that engages and empowers.

Continuing to test the potential of this architectural activity further, Lari has developed and shared a design and construct a self-build model for shelters, using readily available bamboo to create economical and beautiful braced frames for inhabitation. This is a model of structure and enclosure that fulfills the need for long life, loose fit, and in her case, zero carbon architecture. There is an inherent generosity in Lari’s architectural activity that responds to need, helps communities develop artisanal skills and always utilises available resources. Lari’s design for 60,000 Chulah Cookstoves structures is a self-build version of the traditional Pakistani stove that enhances food preparation, hygiene and quality while creating a place for the community. Always working to empower the most challenged communities at the most difficult times, Lari has most recently developed designs for a system that allows the construction of 100 emergency shelters in four days. 

Now working on the repair and regeneration of a key district of historic Lahore, Lari’s work builds on her commitment to recycling materials and buildings. This suggests another model of conservation and builds on the promise of her important early work in Lahore: the Anguri Bag housing scheme.

Lari’s vital contribution identifies different ways of working which suggest how the international architecture profession can play an ever more useful role in helping communities to help themselves, while also responding to climate change. 

It is Lari’s focus on architecture as a complete and vital social, cultural, economic and aesthetic model, as well as her mantra of ‘low cost, zero carbon, zero waste’ that makes her hugely relevant to all who practice today.

Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Angoori Bagh © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan
Pakistani Architect Yasmeen Lari named as the recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2023
Mud Brick One Room House, Moak Sharif, Tando Allahyar, Sindh–2011 © Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Explore and read more about Ar. Yasmeen Lari and her works for a zero carbon self-built environment on RIBA official website.

Save

Leave a Reply