Architectural historian Joseph Rykwert will be the recipient of this year’s Royal Gold Medal for architecture.

Support for the nomination came from well known names in architecture including David Chipperfield, Frank Gehry and Renzo Piana.

Rykwert has taught at many architecture schools around the world such as Princeton, Harvard, the Institut d’Urbanisme in Paris as well as the University of Sydney in Australia.

His books include the seminal The Idea of a Town, as well as The Necessity of Artifice and The Seduction of Place.

The Royal Gold Medal is an annual award by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to an architect or individual who has made a significant contribution to the profession.

Rykwert said of the award: “It is a wonderful gift which my colleagues have made me and adds weight and authority to my words to which they could never otherwise pretend.”

He added: “What makes the gift doubly precious is that it does not come from my fellow-scriveners, but from architects and builders – and suggests that what I have written has engaged their attention and been of use, even though I have never sought to be impartial but have taken sides, sometimes combatively.”

The medal will be awarded in a ceremony at the RIBA headquarters in London on 25 February 2014