Aalto Medal to Zhang Ke

This year marks the 50th anniversary for the award that Finnish architect Alvar Aalto started in 1967 (he was its first recipient) to "honor creative architecture" and go to "living persons who have in a significant way distinguished themselves creatively within the field of architecture." Given sporadically every three to five years, the jubilee award comes only two years after Spain's Nieto Sobejano received the award, in order to coincide with the anniversary.

Under the jury of New York architect Toshiko Mori, Danish architect Tina Saaby, and Finnish architects Asmo Jaaksi and Vesa Oiva, Chinese architect Zhang Ke was awarded the 13th Alvar Aalto Medal on 12 September at Finlandia Hall. Zhang Ke is the head of Beijing's ZAO/standardarchitecture, which he established in 2001 and is now, per a statement on the Aalto Medal, "one of China’s leading producers of contemporary architecture."
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Some words from the jury:

Zhang Ke’s work uses historic references to serve the preservation of traditions. By combining landscape elements in his work, Zhang Ke is able to subtly fit his architecture into the surrounding terrain, creating harmonious relationships between landscape and architecture. His vision of architecture is motivated by the satisfaction the user experiences and the sense of architecture at a human scale.