Mecanoo founder Francine Houben has been honored with a prestigious ABB LEAF Lifetime Achievement Award during a ceremony at London’s stylish Nobu Hotel last Thursday.

The honor is in recognition of the architect’s tremendous cultural output, which has included recent projects at the New York Public Library and University of Cambridge, in addition to works such as and the Montevideo in Rotterdam (2005) and the Library of Birmingham (2013) that have set the firm apart with an innovative combination of different practice areas united by a philosophy of “People, Place, and Purpose.”

"I am a specialist in things I haven't done before," Houben told Archinect in a 2017 interview. "I always search for the balance between analysis and intuition."

Houben’s career began at a time when only 10 to 15% of her university peers were women. She began practicing in 1984 after completing her studies at TU Delft the same year. From there, she went on to establish Mecanoo’s reputation as a groundbreaking industry leader and herself as the “grand dame” of Dutch architecture. 

A 2007 AIA Honorary Fellow, Houben holds honorary fellowships from RIBA and the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada and has received a number of other awards including the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize, which was awarded to her by the Queen of the Netherlands in 2015. Houben has been a lecturer at Yale and Harvard and held the title of Professor of Mobility Aesthetics at her alma mater until very recently.

“Architecture is never a solo act,” she said in a firm statement. “I like to compare it to directing a symphony orchestra; it's all about teamwork, about being visionary, sensitive, and supportive at the same time.”