The Globe and Mail

North American architects ripen late. Bruce Kuwabara was in his late 30s when he, Tom Payne, Marianne McKenna and Shirley Blumberg formed Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg in 1987. By the early 1990s, with the success of their first projects -- like King James Place (urban infill incorporating 19th-century buildings along Toronto's King Street East) and City Hall in Kitchener, Ont. -- the four fortysomethings were regarded as wunderkinds. This June, after winning two U.S. prizes, Kuwabara received the prestigious Royal Architectural Institute of Canada gold medal at age 57, becoming the first of his generation to join the ranks of Jack Diamond, Arthur Erickson and Moshe Safdie.