Soon after landing the Golden Lion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale and the Praemium Imperiale of Japan (see Arquitectura Viva 185 and 188), Paulo Mendes da Rocha has for 2017 won a no less prestigious award, the RIBA Gold Medal, given yearly since 1948 by the Royal Institute of British Architects in recognition of lifetime achievements of professionals whose work has contributed significantly to “the advancement of architecture”; a way of rewarding distinguished figures of the international scene, as evidenced by the list of previous awardees, winners of recent times including I. M. Pei (2010), David Chipperfield (2011), Peter Zumthor (2011), and Zaha Hadid (2016).