RIBA's Stirling Prize is awarded each year as the architectural profession's peer recognition for the best piece of architectural design.
The BBC carried out a poll amongst it's on-line readers and surprisingly of the six building nominated the Newport Gallery received the lowest vote. Only 6% voted for the eventual winner and 31% voted for a private residential scheme in the Forest of Dean.
It is interesting that the "irreverent yet sensitive" solution for the Newport Gallery received limited acknowledgement in the public's eyes. This is the challenge faced by architect's on a daily basis.
It is rare that the complexity and subtlety of a design is fully endorsed or understood in the popular press.
A London gallery built to house the private art collection of artist Damien Hirst has won the Riba Stirling Prize, the UK's leading architecture award.The creation of Newport Street Gallery saw the remodelling of three listed Victorian industrial buildings and the building of two new ones in Vauxhall.Winning architects Caruso St John were also shortlisted in 2000 and 2006.The Stirling Prize judges called their work "a bold and confident contribution to the best of UK architecture"."Caruso St John's approach to conservation is irreverent yet sensitive and achieves a clever solution that expresses a poetic juxtaposition of old and new," they said.
