Forensic Architecture receives RIBA Charles Jencks Award

The Jencks Foundation and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) are pleased to announce the 2022 recipient of the RIBA Charles Jencks Award is Forensic Architecture. This annual award is given to an individual or practice who has simultaneously made a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture. 

Eyal Weizman, founder and director of Forensic Architecture said: “We are particularly honoured to be this year’s recipients of the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the first honour we received from the architectural establishment, and we are delighted the discipline demonstrates its commitment to grow and accommodate practices such as ours, which have been launched from architecture in different destinations. We hope that the award helps inspire architects to use their disciplinary tools to fight for justice publicly and politically. It is also an honour because of my friendship with and longstanding admiration of Charles, who supported the work of FA over the years. To be awarded this prize now is thus bittersweet, as we would have loved to celebrate it with him.”

Forensic Architecture will be presented with the award at the RIBA on 22nd February at 7pm, after which they will give a lecture and be interviewed by Thomas Aquilina from the New Architecture Writers programme. To attend the lecture, please register here.

Led by Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture is a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London founded in 2010. Forensic architecture is the process and presentation of architectural evidence in relation to the built environment within legal and political processes. The agency partners with institutions from grassroots activists to international NGOs to investigate human rights violations on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, environmental violence, and police brutality.

They have presented their work in national and international courts, truth commissions, parliamentary enquiries, and in art and architectural exhibitions. Forensic Architecture investigates state violence and surveillance across the globe using architectural tools and techniques. These methods act as a conduit for analysing photographs, videos, and testimonies of violent events in addition to using digital models to interview survivors of violence to access and explore memories of trauma.  

The RIBA Charles Jencks Award was established by Charles Jencks 1992. In 2003 the remit of the award was changed to celebrate architects who work with both practice and theory to create the best in architecture culture.  In addition to prize money, the winner delivers a lecture at the RIBA. Previous recipients include Níall McLaughlin, Herzog & de Meuron, OMA / AMO Rem Koolhaas and Zada Hadid. Since 2021, the Jencks Foundation has been coordinating the award with RIBA.

Lily Jencks, founder of the Jencks Foundation said: “We are thrilled to award the 2022 RIBA Jencks Award to Forensic Architecture and celebrate their work with a lecture at the “House of Architecture.” The award is for the simultaneous contribution to architecture practice and theory. We applaud Forensic Architecture as a hybrid practice that is both architecture (understood most broadly as the execution of work that changes the spatial and material relationships between people), and theory (their studies that create that work). While they do not build buildings, each line of enquiry by Forensic Architecture seeks to effect direct change in the physical world around issues of social justice, using the tools of architects in atypical but masterful ways.”

The 2022 RIBA Charles Jencks Award jury consisted of RIBA President Simon Allford, Jencks Foundation founder Lily Jencks, Dr. Adrian Lahoud, Dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times architecture and design critic, and Débora Mesa, Principal of Ensamble Studio and co-founder of WoHo, Thomas Aquilina, architect and co-director of New Architecture Writers programme.