The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced that Toshiko Mori, Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), will receive its Gold Medal for Architecture, one of the Academy’s highest honors for excellence in the arts. Mori is the first woman to receive the award.
“This award is deeply meaningful to me because it was nominated and voted on by the members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, who include writers, musicians, artists, and architects of the highest caliber and achievement,” Mori said. “I admire each and every one of them, and I am truly humbled and honored by this award.”
The Gold Medal is awarded in rotating categories each year to artists who have achieved distinction across an entire body of work. Recipients are chosen by the Academy’s 300 members. This year, two Gold Medals were announced: one for architecture, awarded to Mori, and one for history, awarded to writer and historian James McPherson.
Mori is the founding principal of Toshiko Mori Architect. Her work is recognized for its minimalist restraint and innovative use of materials, with a strong emphasis on ecological sensitivity and responsiveness to site conditions. Her portfolio spans both domestic and international projects, including master plans for the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch and the Buffalo Botanical Gardens; the Thread Cultural Center and Artists’ Residences in Senegal; and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Stephen Robert ’62 Hall, at Brown University.
Mori was elected to the Academy in 2020. She has been a member of the Architecture Digest’s AD100 Hall of Fame since 2022 and an Elle Décor A-List Titan since 2021. In the past year, she was a 2025 Honoree at the Storefront for Art and Architecture and was also the recipient of the 2025 Marion MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award from the MacDowell Foundation. Among her recent individual awards, she was named a Pratt Legend in 2024, received the Asia Society 2024 Asia Arts Game Changer Award, the Philip Hanson Hiss Award in 2023, the Isamu Noguchi Award in 2021, and received the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education in 2019. She was inducted into the National Academy of Design in 2021.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 and is dedicated to fostering and sustaining excellence in literature, music, and the fine arts.
