23rd Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture next week

Saturday, 18 July 2026 06:32 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Junya Ishigami

The Geoffrey Bawa Trust has announce that this year’s Memorial Lecture will be delivered by the renowned architect Junya Ishigami on Thursday, 23 July at 6:30 p.m. at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo 07.

Presented annually to mark Geoffrey Bawa’s birthday, the lecture celebrates influential architectural ideas and practitioners from around the world.

Founder of the junya.ishigami+associates architectural firm, Ishigami is known for his large-scale projects that entwine the organic and the built. Ishigami completed a Master’s Degree at the Department of Architecture at Tokyo University of the Arts and worked for the renowned architectural firm Kazuyo Sejima and Associates before founding his own practice in 2024.

Ishigami’s architectural designs dissolve the boundary between the built structure and its surroundings. The completed projects are not merely buildings but interactions between structure, matter, atmospheric conditions, and time. They are frameworks where material processes, climate, and environmental dynamics shape the formation and inhabitation of space.

Ishigami has been honored with several prestigious awards, including the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize (2009), the Golden Lion award for the best project at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2010), the Mainichi Design Award (2010), the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (of fine arts), the OBEL Award by the Henrik Frode Obel Foundation (2019), the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts (2024) and the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize (2024). He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (2025) and received the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize (2026).

Admission to the event is free, but registration is required. For registration and more information, visit: geoffreybawa.com/events. The Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture is supported by Lanka Tiles.