The Stirling Prize shortlist for the top British Architecture Award
is, as usual, characterised by razzmatazz, gloss, and glitter. It seems
to be Richard Rogers’ year now with his impressive Barajas Airport,
Madrid, entered simultaneously with his new building for the Welsh
Assembly.
Hopefully this is more in line with the budget than last year’s
prizewinner, the building for the Scottish Assembly, which had to
shrug off a 400 million overspend, won to some consternation and
political gerrymandering. But what emerged then was the high quality of
the work of Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect. This year,
with the superb Phaeno Centre at Wolfsburg, the Volkswagen
headquarters, she could emerge as favourite- the building has already
been acclaimed by many as a ‘masterwork’. There are other runners-up:
David Adjaye’s ‘Idea Store, a Library for Whitechapel, which reveals
his consummate skill in organising internal spaces. On an even smaller
scale, the Brick House Extension by Caruso St John, springs both from
baroque and from modernist antecedents. Surprisingly, there is no
submission from Norman Foster’s practice.
