Kenneth Frampton

The famed British critic and historian Kenneth Frampton won the Soane Medal, given by the Sir John Soane Museum in London in recognition of the work of people that, through their profession, education, history, and theory “have managed to explain to the public the importance of architecture.” It is the third edition of this prize, after those given in 2017 to Rafael Moneo and in 2018 to Denise Scott Brown; a prize the involves delivering the Soane Medal Lecture in the British capital. On this occasion it was held on 11 November 2019 with the title ‘The Unfinished Modern Project at the End of Modernity: Tectonic Form and the Space of Appearance.’ Born in Woking (England), in 1930, Frampton has developed most of his teaching career in the United States – he is Ware Professor at Columbia University’s GSAPP –, and is the author of some of the most widely read and praised books on architectural history and criticism of the past fifty years, particularly Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995), highly influential among architects, and the classic Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980).