David Chipperfield wins Royal Gold Medal for architecture

David Chipperfield, architect of the rebuilt Neues Museum, Berlin, completed last year, and of such arts buildings as the Stirling prize-winning Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach am Neckar, has won the Royal Gold Medal for architecture. A gift of the Queen through the Royal Institute of British Architects, this long-established award, with no cash or razzmatazz attached, remains the most prestigious of its kind worldwide. The medal is not for a single building, but for lifetime achievement. Chipperfield takes his place alongside other winners including Le Corbusier, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and one of his own particular heroes, the great 20th-century GermanLudwig Mies van der Rohe, who famously said: "I don't want to be interesting; I want to be good."