The Stirling Prize for Architecture

Let the ignoring begin! (Except maybe Ed.)

Shortlist here: http://www.architecture.com/go/Architecture/Also/Awards_2869.html

The Great Court was a bit "Yeah, it's nice but..."

I liked the material used in the Plymouth thing (the bronze weave was very nice) but overall it was uninspiring.

Tiree was a joke, a glorified bus shelter, I mean, who goes to Tyree to look at the ARCHITECTURE?

The Dance Centre was OK, but feckin' hell, arts centres are just arse, really.

Bed-Z was wonderful because people actually *live* in it, so they interact with it on a far more fundamental level, so it's more important that it be beautiful and functional. Plus, encouraging ecologically aware multihousing is an important thing. IT WUZ ROBBED!!!

(architects w.only one working eye CoD: x and le corb = both monoculars!!)

I think I'd have liked the Laban centre better if it hadn't been designed by Herzog and DeMeuron. but it's a good winner, you could see the judges carried along on a wave of their own drool looking at the thing. Also looks like something David Adjaye would make himself, no wonder he liked it.

BedZED didn't win because although worthy, judges felt it looked like Brookside Close. Foster didn't win because the marble didn't match the other marble, and well duh it's Norman Foster, he gets the money, not the prizes. Finsbury Square didn't win because it wasn't all that good (Frischmann said it was fascistic). Tyree thing didn't win because, well, there was a provincial winner last year I think.

http://www.viewpictures.co.uk/makda/001.jpg

(except like ppl are going to be living in it and it's not in london)

it may mean moving to holland

(Mark, he'd likely commute like our friend Ant who teaches arch in AmDam two days a week, has practice/teaching in London and consultancy in Bruxelles. Anyway don't they have a branch office in Lahndahn?)

is very funny but I am not laughing.

And it Lurks in a very sinister way.

I am glad the Gherkin won. Will let y'all know how the food is after I have dinner there at the end of the month. Have already seen the stupendous view.

Ed, my feeling is that the gherkin makes the London skyline look considerably less regular, in that it is very different from anything else there. I've not been around and about it, so I don't know what its ground level is like or how it works from the street. You may be right from there, I don't know.

As for the design the shape is a rehash of an unbuilt gaudi hotel, covered with glass in place of mosaic and Enric Miralles has realised (posthumously) a much better gherkin in Barcelona. It does add hugely to the London skyline how could it not, but it is a dull and sinister form. And at the end of the day it's just an office block, lot's of impact on the people who work there, very little impact, other than visually, on society as a whole. Yes it incorporates a few clever environmental technologies, but this only allows the A/C to be off 40% of the year (a big improvement), but a truly innovative building, and something that is perfectly buildable today is a high rise glass fronted office block with no A/C at all.

That Barcelona gherkin in full...

I don't think it especially out of place in a skyline that already includes Tower 42 and the Barbican. One of the things I like about the view from Waterloo Bridge is the way that the Gherkin, St Paul's and Tower 42 are all positioned so that they look the same height.

My favourite on that shortlist is the Manchester War Museum, though. I'd love to see a Liebeskind building like that on the South Bank. That Graz building is insane, it looks like a giant upturned udder.

The Erotic Gherkin - Classic or Dud?

Its bizarre really - it looks so utterly incongruous amid all those traditional buildings but seems to fit snugly in there as well.

Manchester War Museum here.

I am finding it hard to really recall, though.

I'm very disappointed that the Gherkin won. It just seemed like such an obvious choice. I actually expected Bexley Business Academy to win.

I don't *hate* on the Gherkin, I just don't think it should have won. Something about it bothers me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe, like Ed says, it's too regular. Maybe I don't like the way that it usurps St. Paul's dome and makes it go all phallic instead of the feminine sweep of the dome. Maybe I just don't like giant dildos f*cking the sun. Who knows.

kudos to kevin whatsisface for asking 'do you think this will help you rent out the rest of it?' to woman in charge of letting space in 30 st mary axe (which i will know insist on calling it in some kind of rockist way) (and which i like as a bulding, i just think it's not as worthy as the school) (yes, i know 'worthy' wasn't a consideration. maybe it should've been)

(that barcelona thing above doesn't seem to taper in at the bottom, which is the clever bit of the london gherkin)

In the end the article just seems symptomatic of the tendecy of Britain to pick up on art movements very, very late and then knock their successors on the head for daring to have evolved somewhere else while the critics were fumbling about, trying to decide whether to jump on the bandwagon or not. When Britain adopts the Euro I fully expect them to start complaining to the European Central Bank 'But why have you changed the design of the notes when the original was so good?'

you lost me on the last one tho.

I'm undecided on the London Bridge Tower, mind you. I think its a beautiful shape but it looks a little excessive in scale for its location. Its, like, twice the height of Guy's Hospital which is not exactly low-rise anyway.

http://www.londonbridgetower.com/images/building/view_from_thames.jpg

There has been a bit of kerfuffle over the main benefactor to the BBS and cashflow dodginess and that may have kiboshed the thought of giving the prize to the school as a result.

I've been working with 30SMA on an event all summer and it's funny - they are RABID about Not Calling It The Gherkin.

x-post

Cna I quoteq ouy no that, De?

Heh heh heh. I now have a giant folder on my network labelled STIRLING PRIZE 2008 - shall I have a looksee in it?

Yes, and post any pictures please.

Have the nominations been announced yet? because I don't want to go doing anything really naughty (i.e. sackable) if I find stuff anything in there.

(Watch it be a big empty folder with nothing in it yet.)

http://www.architecture.com/Awards/RIBAStirlingPrize/RIBAStirlingPrize.aspx

It HAS been announced.

Yeah, sorry - got sucked into a meeting. Yes, it's been announced. All that's in there is the shortlist right now, with various gubbins about the projects. I should really spend more time looking at our own website! Ha ha!

Is this the first year in history that Foster hasn't been nominated? no, wait, not nominated in 2006.

Of course, right now our website is down. I might have to go and kick the server, argh, it really is all held together with sticky tape around here. :-(