The renowned Irish architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey have today (Tuesday 3 February) received the 2015 Royal Gold Medal, the world’s most prestigious architecture award. Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen and is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence “either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture”. Awarded since 1848, previous Royal Gold Medallists include Frank Gehry (2000), Sir Norman Foster (1983), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941) and Sir George Gilbert Scott (1859). A tour de force in contemporary Irish and British architecture, Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey co-founded their practice O’Donnell and Tuomey in Dublin during 1988, having previously worked together for internationally renowned architects Stirling Wilford Associates and Colquhoun & Miller in London. Their new practice coupled Sheila’s quiet, studied ‘rationalism’ alongside John’s fluent, rhetorical ‘constructivism’ and through their buildings, publications, exhibitions and teaching they have forged a confident new identity for Irish architecture.  In the early 1990s, O’Donnell and Tuomey were part of the ‘Group 91 Architects’ group whose collective skill in masterplanning spearheaded the regeneration of Dublin’s neglected Temple Bar. It was the pair’s first permanent building, the Irish Film Institute (1991) that brought them profile and acclaim for its dynamic contribution to the revitalised Dublin quarter. Their early work, from a private home in Navan to schools, public housing and community buildings, provided the canvas for them to experiment and evolve their unconventional creative approach and celebrated style. More recent projects include the modest but brilliant Photographers’ Gallery in Soho and the exceptional 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize-shortlisted Saw Swee Hock Student Centre at the London School of Economics.     Speaking when it was announced they would receive architecture’s highest honor, Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey said: “We’re delighted to have been chosen for this unexpected honour. We’re humbled to find ourselves in such a company of heroes, architects whose work we have studied and from whose example we continue to learn. We believe in the social value and the poetic purpose of architecture and the gold medal encourages us to prevail in this most privileged and complicated career.” RIBA President Stephen Hodder said: “O’Donnell + Tuomey’s work is always inventive – striking yet so well considered, particular to its place and brief, beautifully crafted –  and ever developing. It is an absolute joy and inspiration to hear them describe their work, and always a delight to experience one of their buildings. Sheila and John are at the vanguard of contemporary Irish architecture and I am delighted they are to receive this lifetime honour.” O’Donnell + Tuomey have been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize a record five times, in 1999 for Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School (Dublin, Ireland), 2005 for the Lewis Glucksman Gallery (Cork, Ireland), 2011 for An Gaeláras Irish Language Arts and Cultural Centre (Derry, Northern Ireland) and 2012 for Lyric Theatre (Belfast, Northern Ireland) and in 2014 for the London School of Economics Saw Swee Hock Students’ Centre (London, UK).   They have exhibited three times at the Venice Architecture Biennale and are both alumni of the School of Architecture at University College Dublin where they continue to teach and inspire the next generation of architects.   Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey will be presented with the 2015 Royal Gold Medal tonight at a special event at the RIBA at 66 Portland Place, London W1.   ENDS Notes to editors For further press information contact Howard Crosskey in the RIBA Press Office: 020 7307 3761 howard.crosskey@riba.org Portrait images of Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey with a selection of their projects are available here: https://app.box.com/s/itnyt08ptjku2qqmqz09 They will be the third husband and wife team to receive the Royal Gold Medal following on from Charles and Ray Eames in 1979 and Michael and Patricia Hopkins in 1994. Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey are the third and fourth Irish citizens to have been awarded the Royal Gold Medal following the engineer Peter Rice in 1992 and architect Michael Scott in 1975.    The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members. Visit www.architecture.com and follow us on Twitter. The 2014 RIBA Honours Committee who selected O’Donnell + Tuomey was chaired by RIBA President Stephen Hodder. Citation for Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey by Joseph Rykwert and Níall McLaughlin: In presenting the Royal Gold Medal to Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, I am conscious that they are among the youngest recipients of the Medal, and moreover that it is forty years since it had been awarded to an Irish practice. In the meanwhile Irish architecture has flourished – particularly in their generation – with a commitment to the art and the craft of building which is the envy of our more populous island. What marks Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey’s achievement is that very commitment. They are, of course builders first of all: but they are writers and teachers as well as professionals, active through the Architectural Association of Ireland in whose recent revival they were instrumental, so that their presence on the Irish scene is a powerful one, and their influence as teachers and writers has been extremely important. Their connection to London and the London scene began when they worked for Stirling and Wilford and then for Colquhoun and Miller; but their first contribution in their own right was the modest but brilliant Photographers’ Gallery in Soho, and it was later asserted much more visibly by the – now celebrated – Saw Swee Hock Student Centre for the London School of Economics, a work of unique architectural distinction for that august institution, and a commission which they won against very stiff competition. The LSE Student House is visible from Kingsway and Lincoln’s Inn Fields – which makes it a very public building indeed. Its formal brilliance is enhanced by the skilful use of brick which sets up a dialogue