"Gherkin" Wins The Stirling Award
Saturday, 16 October, 2004, 20:15 GMT 21:15 UK from BBC News
The "Gherkin", the City of London's landmark Swiss Re Tower, has won a prestigious architecture award.
The favourite, officially called 30 St Mary Axe, took the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize on a unanimous vote by judges.
The prize honors the building making the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year.
Five other new buildings were short listed for the £20,000 award, presented in London on Saturday night.
The "Gherkin" clearly stood out among the nominees as this is the very first time that the judges, in the award's nine-year history, made a unanimous decision. They said that the building was "already a popular icon".
It had an "elegant and impressive" entrance, while the top-floor bar would be "one of the very best rooms in 21st Century London", they added
Other contenders alongside Lord Foster's building were The Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, a specialist school in Bexley, London, and Coventry's city centre redevelopment.
Dublin's Spire monument and the Kunsthaus arts centre in Graz, Austria, were also nominated.
The award, which some consider as the "Oscars" of architecture, covers buildings in Britain or designed by a British architect anywhere in the European Union.
Previous winners include the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and a multi-coloured London dance centre.
The prize is named after the architect Sir James Stirling, who died in 1992.
To see the other nominees, click here.
posted by ben tumbling @ 10:13 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
The first time I became aware of the "Gherkin" was about three months ago when I saw its picture and read an article about it in The New York Times.
It's an amazing building both aesthetically and functionally. The other good thing about it is that it looks good both on the outside as well as the inside.
I encourage everyone to read about this building and try to learn from it.
And yes... I know what most of you are thinking....it is sort of phallic.....
It's nice to see good work still being churned out by architects who are widely considered to be "laos." After churning out a series of the brand of dull, bland and faceless glass boxes that anti-modernists frequently talked about, it's releiving to see one of contemporary modern architecture's "old guard" shake this one out of his sleeve. I applaud this "Fosterito"!
Looks like guys like Koolhaas, Libeskind, Hadid, Tschumi, Herzog+De Meuron should still look over their shoulders... coz the old men can still do it...!
Most of the other guys you mentioned can also be said to be part of the "old guys club" hehehe.
Although Liebskind and Hadid have only been recently recognized, they have been around for a while too.
I guess there's just a long gestation period for most architects before they "hit it big" if ever at all.
Most architects do their most prominent works in their more mature years.
Koolhaas is in his early 50s....
same with Hadid and Libekind....
Tschumi I think is a bit younger...
H+M are even younger....
Foster is in his late 60s... so the gap is visible. Even more telling I think, is the approach to the design... Foster's contemporaries are Rogers and Piano as well as Thomas Herzog (not to be mistaken with Jacques Herzog), the slightly younger "little brothers" are Grimshaw and Hopkins. His neo/post/hyper-modern contemporary would perhaps be Gehry....
Whereas the slightly younger "little brothers" of the Trendy "New Guard" (Koolhaas, Hadid, Libeskind) are guys like Rashid+Couture (Asymptote), the MVRDV guys, Greg Lynn (FORM), FOA, Van Berkel+Bos (UN Studio), etc.
But yes, the gestation period does indeed take long...especially given how bizarre some of their ideas can be :)
Classic Example: Mr. Archigram himself, Peter Cook, only got to be build his first building (Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria) last year (or was it 2 years ago?) and he's OLD! hahahahaha!
I was talking about "career age" and not "chronological age".
Case in point, Frank Gehry is already 75 years old but compared to the other guys you mentioned (like Koolhaas for example who's already 60 but was already kicking butt way back when), his career didn't exactly take off as early as theirs did.
I think most of us will agree though that regardless of age (career or chronological), 87 year old I.M. Pei is the best. Well.... it's mostly me then but I'm a shameless I.M. Pei fan.
I was more of a fan after watching the Louis Khan documentary/biopic "My Architect".
I.M. Pei, being interviewed about what he knew of Louis Khan, was very humble despite his numerous achievements. He spoke so highly of Louis Khan who, compared to him, started much later in his career and produced fewer distinct works.
The interviewer pointed out that a lot of people will say that I.M. Pei is definitely more successful than Louis Khan.
My idol's response? "Quality not quantity!"
And it was then and there after he spoke those words that I fell to my knees, raised my arms and bowed down.
"I'm not worthy... I'm not worthy...."
With regards to "career age," yun nga, OMA only began creating ripples in the early 90s and perhaps in the 80s with Melun-Senart which didn't even get built... Same with Libeskind, who only shot to fame with the Jewish Museum which was finished in 1999 (I think)...but was largely considered a "paper architect" before it... thus in terms of "career age", sila yung "new age".... :)
As opposed to guys like Lord Fosterito, Piano and Rogers who were rocking the scene in the late 70s pa lang... Pompidou, Hongkong Shanghai Bank, etc.
On I.M. Pei...
I.M. Pei was my first architecture hero...
Somehow he always managed to stand in the right place as the whole battle between modern and po-mo went on... it only goes to show how genius can transcend such things. The pyramid looks perfect on the place d' louvre. and the bank of china is just...too good.
Yes, he is famous for his humility and that makes his personality and wit unmatched in the pompous "I'm a rockstar" imagery that architects seem to carry with them nowadays...
Kahn was a bit different... he was always this quasi-outcast...the silent poet, mr. "still waters run deep" but he was damn good as well...
By the way, how did you manage to get a copy of "My father the architect"??? I'm now green with envy....
I don't have a copy. I watched it on the big screen. As soon as they release it on DVD, I'll get a copy.
Oops. I hope we're talking about the same thing. The title of the movie here is "My Architect: A Son's Journey". I don't know if it's the same as "My Father the Architect" which you mentioned.
Another architect centered movie you guys might want to check out, aside from "The Fountainhead", is "The Belly of An Architect". That's been out for quite a while now.
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