Following the International Chapter Architecture Awards, we’d like to share the speech that National President Elect David Wagner gave at the event.
It it is my absolute pleasure to be with you all here tonight as we celebrate the excellence of architecture across the globe as well as our wonderful relationship between Australia and Japan. I would like to welcome you all to the 2025 International Chapter Architectural Awards and like to acknowledge from our Institute:
- CEO Cameron Bruhn
- International Chapter Chair Wei Yap
- Past National President Bob Nation
- SONA National Vice President Orlando Illopoulos
as well as all our International Chapter members and friends here tonight.
I would like to give a special welcome to our colleagues from the Japan Institute of Architects and the Architectural Institute of Japan who are joining us tonight. May I ask each of our JIA and AIJ colleagues to come forward and receive a small token of friendship in the form on an Australian Institute of Architects lapel pin:
- From the Japan Institute of Architects
- Vice President Kazuo MATSUO
- Kinki Branch International Committee Chair Yoshitsuna KUTSUKI
- From the Architectural Institute of Japan:
- Professor Noriko AKITA, and
- Associate Professor Haruka TSUKUDA
Although the Australian Institute of Architects is hosting this event tonight, I would like to recognize that we are guests of the generous and hospitable Japanese people on their ancient and beautiful lands, with their incredible and enduring culture of sophisticated design, artisanship and craftsmanship. An inspiration to all architects.
I would like to remind everyone in attendance today of our collective responsibility to create safe spaces, both within the workplaces we inhabit and the events in which we celebrate our industry. We enjoy an inherently diverse and complex social fabric and it is important to understand, recognise, and respect the differences that build a strong, inclusive community.
Nearly sixty years ago, distinguished Australian architect, Robin Boyd, followed up his initial text on Japanese architecture examining the work of Kenzo Tange, with a second book entitled ‘New Directions in Japanese Architecture’. As with much of Boyd’s writings, it was an awakening and refreshing work which unveiled the innovative modernist work of architects such as Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki, Kazuo Shinohara, Arata Isozaki as well as Tange to a broader audience. Boyd’s engagement with Japan has been recently celebrated by the Robin Boyd Foundation, through an exhibition and seminar entitled ‘When Robin Boyd went to Japan’. The work of Japanese architects has been of great interest to Australian architects and we only need to look at the recently completed SANAA extension to the NSW Art Gallery in Sydney or Shigeru Ban’s temporary cardboard Anglican Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, completed a few years back, to see the significant impact Japanese architecture is having on the built environment of the southern hemisphere.
Today’s world floats on ethereal communication enabling even better international engagement and co-operation across the globe. This is the hallmark of the International Chapter and is our combined future, a future enriched by diversity of culture and diversity of peoples. We do not need to look far to see exemplar predecessors from our International Chapter, predecessors who have demonstrated architectural excellence beyond Australia, such as recent Gold Medalists Kerry Hill of Kerry Hill Architects (and we have Justin Hill here tonight), Peter Wilson of Bolles + Wilson and Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg of Koning Eizenberg.
I am greatly interested in the dynamism of the Institute’s International Chapter with its over 400 members spread across the world and admire the leadership of your Chapter Councillors and Chair, Wei Yap, supported by Chapter staff in managing this geographical spread. In particular I am interested in how International Chapter members engage with each other and the potential to enhance that engagement. In my own Chapter in Victoria, and in addition to the traditional committee structure, some time back we established a series of practice forums based upon size of practice such as large, medium and small, by demographic such as regional architecture or by interest, such as sustainable architecture. Organised by members and meeting every couple of months, a topic is interrogated, perhaps with a guest speaker where members learn and share with each other in a spirit of collegiality. I believe it is this energy and innovation of our members, supported by staff, that can create events such as tonight, that can inspire others around us, where we can learn from each other, where we can foster professional development and in the process nurture collegiality and fellowship. This is what being a member of professional membership is about. This is what being a member of the Australian Institute of Architects is about, and I am sure the same applies to JIA and AIJ.
To our awards tonight. I greatly look forward to the projects to be presented. The National Architecture Awards programme is the premier event of the Institute calendar and the primary medium by which we communicate and celebrate the contribution which architecture makes to our built environment. I am conscious that the Awards have come a significant distance over the last few years. We are currently in the midst of a revolution in architectural thought and design where sustainability and acknowledgement of the peoples of the land in which the project and architects find themselves, have engaged architectural form and space as new dimensions of how architecture is created, understood and assessed. This process will continue over coming years as our profession develops a more comprehensive understanding of how to engage in deep listening of a place and culture as well as by adjusting to a global appreciation of resources, carbon footprint and expenditure of energy in the development of our built environment.
Finally, in anticipation, I would like to congratulate all of tonight’s winners and recipients of commendations, indeed all who entered the awards and participated in the rigour and interrogation that forms such an important part of the Australian Institute of Architects awards programme. I look forward to continuing my conversation with each of you about what it is that drives you as an architect, and how the Institute can play a greater part in supporting your capacity to practice at the highest level. Thank you.
David Wagner FRAIA
National President Elect
Australian Institute of Architects