The architect behind the Eden Project is to receive the UK industry’s highest honour.
The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is given in recognition of a lifetime’s work and personally approved by the Queen.
Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, who will receive the 2019 award, also designed the International Terminal at London’s Waterloo station.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) praised Sir Nicholas’s “extraordinary innovative approach to architecture and his modernist signature”.
The bubble-like structures of the Eden Project were built on what was a redundant clay pit.
The ecological centre in Cornwall is now one of the UK’s most popular visitor attractions.
The glass and steel International Terminal at Waterloo won the RIBA Building of the Year Award in 1994.
Sir Nicholas said he was passionate about “experiment” and “sustainability”.
“I have always felt we should use the technology of the age we live in for the improvement of mankind,” he said.
RIBA president Ben Derbyshire said the architect had been responsible for “an extraordinary number of buildings and infrastructure projects of international significance”.
Sir Nicholas will receive the medal next year.
