Bruce Kuwabara, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg awarded with King Charles III Coronation Medals

September 4, 2024

We’re proud to share that our founding partners Bruce Kuwabara, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg are recipients of the King Charles III Coronation Medal. 

Created to commemorate the coronation of King Charles III, the medal is a one-time award administered by the Chancellery of Honours and bestowed on individuals who have made a significant difference in Canadian communities. 

Nominated by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) for their outstanding contributions and commitment to the architectural community in Canada, Kuwabara, McKenna, and Blumberg are three of 30 RAIC candidates chosen as recipients. They will receive their medals on World Architecture Day, October 7, at the RAIC’s Congress on Architecture. 

Since co-founding KPMB Architects in 1987 with Thomas Payne, Kuwabara, McKenna, and Blumberg have established the firm as a practice devoted to catalyzing change through the built environment and creating beautiful, climate-conscious buildings that positively impact the lives of their occupants. Throughout their careers, they have been the recipients of several accolades for their commitment to design excellence, including being appointed to Orders of Canada.    

Kuwabara has led the design for 14 of the firm’s 18 Governor General Award-winning projects and recently received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Toronto “for his superlative architectural and design sensibility.” 

He has transformed precincts across Canada and the United States with his projects, including Richmond City Hall; the Remai Modern Art Gallery in Saskatchewan; Canada’s National Ballet School; and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, a multi-phase revitalization project that helped the hospital fulfil its mission to become the mental health facility of the future. 

McKenna was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Design Futures Council and has been commended for designing “architecture that enriches the public experience.” She has designed iconic performing arts, academic, and cultural buildings in Canada and the United States, including the Royal Conservatory of Music and Koerner Hall, Massey Hall, The Jenny Belzberg Theatre in Banff, and Minnesota’s Orchestra Hall. 

McKenna sits on the International Advisory Board for the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University and holds honorary degrees from Swarthmore College and Laurentian University. Valerie Smith, president of Swarthmore College, called her projects “sustainable, urbanistically responsible, and spatially and programmatically complex.” 

Blumberg is passionate about designing inclusive, resilient communities. Her portfolio comprises affordable housing projects and globally lauded cultural and academic buildings across Canada, including prototypical housing for the northern Indigenous community of Fort Severn, the Julis Romo Rabinowitz and Louis A. Simpson International Building at Princeton University, and the recently completed Harrison McCain Pavilion for Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick. 

Blumberg also initiated the formation of BEAT (Building Equality in Architecture Toronto) to support women in architecture and is currently leading the design of a new building for the Montreal Holocaust Museum. 

Read more here.