Belgian urban designers Dogma win the 2023 RIBA Charles Jencks Award

“We are truly delighted and honored to receive this award. We are especially honored because it is dedicated to Charles Jencks, whose practice combined history, theory, and design, which are also inseparable aspects of our work. Over the last ten years, we have tried to put forward ideas to improve the way in which we live and work in our houses and in our cities, and have done this both through design proposals and by revisiting some of the most salient and often forgotten chapters of the history of our discipline. We would like to share the award with past and present collaborators without whom our work would have not been possible,” the pair said at the announcement.

The Financial Times  architecture and design critic Edwin Heathcote complemented Aureli as a “hugely influential figure” that “reinforces his ideas with a drawn language which is as rigorous and instantly recognizable as his theory.”

He was joined by the Foundation's founder, Lily Jencks, who said: "Few architects have had a greater influence on students’ thinking and representation over the last 10 years than Dogma. Through teaching, exhibitions, competitions, and books, they follow a clear and uncompromising project to dismantle the relationships of architecture and capital. While Dogma have not built many projects, all of their work takes the material construction of buildings seriously, and has implications on the building profession. They are an important counter to the commercialized architectural profession, using their deep knowledge of architectural history and theory, to propose alternative ways for us to live together.” 

In addition to the £3,000 prize, the pair will deliver a lecture at RIBA's 66 Portland Place headquarters in London on May 16th, 2024. Tickets will be available starting in January.