World Monuments Fund and the furniture designer Knoll have announced the winner of their annual prize for the conservation of an historic Modernist building. The 2026 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize goes to the Australia-based architecture firm Architectus for its work on the historic Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“Africa Hall stands as one of the most important expressions of Modern architecture on the continent, a building that brought together international ideas and local identity at a pivotal moment in the region’s history of decolonisation and national autonomy,” Barry Bergdoll, the prize’s jury chair and a professor at New York’s Columbia University, said in a statement. “From its placement at one of the most prominent sites in the capital of Ethiopia (the only African country never to have been colonised), the architecture combined a functionalist rationality of structure and purpose with the aura of Modernism's optimism in the future.”
Inside Africa Hall after conservation Photo: Rory Gardiner, Courtesy World Monuments Fund
Africa Hall, the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, was designed by the Italian architect Arturo Mezzedimi. Completed in 1961, it was commissioned by the last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. In 1963, the precursor to the African Union—the Organisation of African Unity—was founded inside. Africa Hall was constructed partially using local stone, and it incorporates a triptych of stained-glass windows by the artist Afewerk Tekle (1932-2012). (The contemporary artist Julie Mehretu took inspiration from these particular windows for her own monumental stained-glass project at the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.)
The award-winning conservation project on the building began in 2014 and took ten years and $57m to complete. Balancing the architect’s original vision with contemporary technology and accessibility requirements, Architectus worked with local experts on the building’s concrete structure and restoring millions of tiles in its mosaics and hundreds of pieces of original Mezzedimi-designed furniture. The architects teamed up with Mezzedimi’s grandson (also an architect) on historical design research and with Tekle’s grandson (an artist as well) on carefully replacing all the pieces of the stained-glass windows. Outside, the fountains, gardens and stairs were also restored. The completed project was officially inaugurated in October 2024.
“The recent restoration has allowed the clarity of Messedimi’s design to speak again,” Bergdoll said in a statement, “revealing the ambition, craftsmanship and symbolic power that have made the building a landmark of Modernism and a continuing stage for African diplomacy.”
Afewerk Tekle’s Total Liberation of Africa (1958) Photo: Rory Gardiner, Courtesy World Monuments Fund
In addition to the Modernism Prize, the jury awarded its first Stewardship Award for Modernist Homes to the Umbrella House in Sarasota, Florida. The new award honours “thoughtful conservation projects" that preserve the architectural significance of private residences. The Umbrella House, designed by the architect Paul Rudolph in 1953, is exemplary of Sarasota Modernism—melding the international style with the local aesthetic and regional climate concerns. Its Hall Architects-led project reconstructed the house’s iconic roof shade, which had blown off in a hurricane in 1966. The Umbrella House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
This year’s World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize was chosen from a pool of 73 submissions from 28 countries around the world. This is the first time that an African project has won since the award was founded in 2008. An award ceremony will take place on 18 February in Palm Springs, California.
