Richard Rogers scoops UK Award

Madrid's Barajas Airport by Richard Rogers has won the UK's most prestigious architectural award, the RIBA Stirling Prize. WAN's poll of it's readers successfully predicted this outcome unlike most the of British press which forecast Zaha Hadid's Phaneo Science Centre as the winner and Channel 4's own poll which selected Michael Hopkin's Evelina Children's Hospital. The British National press had criticized the award saying that it rewarded iconic architecture over good design, reporting a list a faults with previous winners. However they failed to differentiate between design and construction citing items like leaking roofs which are as likely to be construction defects as design. Accepting the award, Richard Rogers pointed out the difference between Madrid’s Barajas airport and London’s T5. The Heathrow terminal was started some eight years earlier than its Spanish counterpart and still under construction despite being half the size.