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Tom Emerson has been awarded the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Prize 2018. The literary prize commemorating the Swiss poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer has been awarded annually since 1938 for outstanding cultural achievements in the canton of Zürich.

Emerson has been awarded the prize for collaborative work realised with architecture students from eth in the city of Zürich including the Pavilion of Reflections, a floating arts pavilion for Manifesta 11 (2016), which attracted over 100,000 visitors and the Belvedere Zollikon, a green oak staircase enabling views across Lake Zürich completed in 2013.

Emerson is only the second architect to be awarded the prize since the architect-turned-novelist Max Frisch won in 1938. The prize has historically largely been received by Swiss writers, journalists, academics and visual artists.

The other winners are the linguist Dr Simone E. Pfenninger, for her research on second language acquisition at the University of Zürich, and the author Dorothee Elmiger for her novels Invitation to the Daredevils and Sleepers.