RIBA Gold Medal Lecture at Liverpool University
🥇 Did you know? The Royal Gold Medal is the RIBA’s highest honour, awarded annually in recognition of outstanding work. The winners include some of the most influential architects of the 19th and 20th centuries. Last night we attended a presentation by 2024’s Gold Medal Winner Lesley Lokko, introduced by current RIBA president Muyiwa Oki.
The event was hosted in Liverpool University’s famous Leggate Lecture Theatre – the original “red brick” university building, designed by renowned Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse, who also designed Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London.
Our firm has some interesting connections with the Royal Gold Medal, across three generations:
First Generation: Waterhouse himself won the Royal Gold Medal in 1878. He was a close contemporary of Lovelock Mitchell’s founder Thomas M. Lockwood, nominating Lockwood as a fellow into the RIBA in 1887. Both men were the same age, born in 1830.
Second Generation: Thomas Lockwood’s sons -William and Philip- worked closely with London architect T.E. Collcutt, who won the Royal Gold Medal in 1902. The influence of their collaborations can be seen around Chester, in the eclectic European-style renaissance motifs which characterised Lockwood & Sons’ work at that time.
Third Generation: Then in the early twentieth century, our firm was named Lockwood Abercrombie and Saxon, and our partner Sir Patrick Abercrombie won the Royal Gold Medal in 1946, along with the American equivalent AIA Gold Medal, for his town planning strategies that have influenced cities globally. Abercombie continued to be associated with our firm, designing interiors for our Wrexham University project in 1950-53.
Abercrombie was also a renowned Professor of Civic Design at Liverpool University, aptly bringing this story of academic and architectural excellence full circle…
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