Architecture MasterPrize 2026: Nine Major Winners in 68 Images

Summary

• The 2026 Architecture MasterPrize announced its major honors.
• Four titles recognize individual projects and their design.
• Three awards celebrate leading architecture and design practices.
• Two more honor top architectural photographers.

From a presidential library in North Dakota to the geometric façades of Hong Kong, the 2026 Architecture MasterPrize announced nine major honors spanning architectural design and photography.

The eleventh edition drew entries from 95 countries. This gallery covers four project awards, three firm awards and the two top architectural photography honors. A celebration of the 2025/26 winners is scheduled for November 24, 2026, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Snøhetta and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

The Architectural Design of the Year title went to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota. Snøhetta designed a cultural project closely connected to the surrounding landscape. The images show the relationship between the low-lying architecture and its natural setting.

Atelier Carle’s OAKV

Atelier Carle, led by Alain Carle, received Interior Design of the Year for OAKV in Canada. The images concentrate on material choices, surfaces and spatial organization in the project recognized by the jury.

Benjakitti Forest Park: landscape as urban infrastructure

Thailand’s Benjakitti Forest Park earned Arsomsilp Community and Environmental Architect and Turenscape the Landscape Design of the Year title. The photographs show water, vegetation and walkways coming together in a large urban park.

Windkraft Simonsfeld and sustainable design

Austria’s Juri Troy ZT GmbH won Sustainable Design of the Year for the expansion of Windkraft Simonsfeld’s headquarters. The honor recognizes this specific building project rather than a general award to the company.

KPF: Architectural Firm of the Year

US-based KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox) was named Architectural Firm of the Year. This award recognizes the practice’s body of work and sustained contribution to architecture rather than a single building.

PMT Partners: Interior Design Firm of the Year

China’s PMT Partners received the Interior Design Firm of the Year honor. Like the other firm awards, this recognizes a studio’s practice and is distinct from the Interior Design of the Year award for OAKV.

PLACE: urban landscapes and public space

US-based PLACE won Landscape and Urban Design Firm of the Year, an award for the practice’s work in landscape and urban spaces, separate from the project-specific recognition for Benjakitti Forest Park.

Derry Ainsworth: Hong Kong becomes a mosaic

Derry Ainsworth won Exterior Architectural Photographer of the Year for Hong Kong Modern Mosaics. Dense façades, repeated shapes and contrasting colors become almost abstract compositions.

Tzu Chin Yu: the geometry of Kanazawa Umimirai Library

Taiwan’s Tzu Chin Yu of TCY Studio won Interior Architectural Photographer of the Year for Japan’s Kanazawa Umimirai Library, designed by Coelacanth K&H Architects. His images emphasize diffuse light and the repeating pattern of circular wall openings.

What we think

The strongest contrast here is between photographs that explain a built project and photographs that reinterpret it visually. At the Roosevelt library and Benjakitti Forest Park, understanding the surrounding landscape matters. In Ainsworth’s Hong Kong pictures, by contrast, a small section of a façade can stand alone as a complete composition.

For architectural photographers, these nine honors offer practical framing questions: how much surrounding context to include, when a person helps establish scale, and when repeated lines tell a stronger story than a complete elevation.