Themes
The finalists in the RIBA Stirling Prize are as varied as they could possibly be, but they fit broadly into three themes:
Superstar architects
Few architects achieve fame outside of their specialist field. Just a handful will become household names like Antonio Gaudi or Le Corbusier. But on this year's Stirling Prize shortlist there are two names which share that status: they are Norman Foster and Daniel Libeskind. Lord Foster of Foster and Partners is probably the best known architect in Europe, the man behind Europe's loftiest tower, the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt and the 'wobbly' Millennium Bridge in London. Libeskind is certainly the most famous architect in the United States, but his superstar status is relatively new.
Back in 1997, when the trustees of the Imperial War Museum commissioned this Polish-born American to build their 'North' museum, Libeskind had yet to complete a major project. But with the completion of the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2001, he arrived. When it first opened to the public in 1999, it was an empty shell, but it attracted half a million visitors in its first year. The Jewish Museum's official opening was on 9 September 2001. Two days later came the events which were to propel Libeskind further into the spotlight: his design has been chosen for the Ground Zero Memorial Site, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.
It was no great surprise that his plans were chosen for Ground Zero. Libeskind designs extraordinary, attention grabbing buildings. His work is provocative and controversial. In fact, it has been criticised for being too demanding, for making no attempt to fit in with the surrounding buildings.
But superstar architecture is not meant to be modest. Superstar architects create landmark buildings, icons that can transform skylines, like Malaysia's Petronas Towers, that can revitalise neighbourhoods, like Richard Rogers' Pompidou Centre in Paris.
Some can even change the character of a city. Take Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, which transformed Bilbao from a dull industrial city in the Spanish Basque region to a hip and happening tourist destination. It is hoped that the Kunsthaus might have a similar impact on Austria's second city, Graz.
Lord Foster's devotion to exploring technological innovation in architecture has propelled him to superstar status, too. The Gherkin – 30 St Mary Axe – may not be London's tallest building, nor is it by any means as bold, brash or attention seeking as a Libeskind or Gehry, but it is nonetheless revolutionary. Not only is it London's first eco-friendly skyscraper, it could turn out to have a profound impact on the City of London's skyline.
Until the construction of 30 St Mary Axe, the Corporation of London, the body which runs London's financial district, had fiercely resisted plans to build skyscrapers in the City, wanting to preserve views of St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London. There have been a few exceptions, such as Tower 42, but for the most part, London has remained a low-rise city. However, Lord Foster's Gherkin design won over the corporation's planning officers. Traditionalists will be horrified, but the construction of the Gherkin has opened the floodgates for approvals for a rash of other high-rise designs, such as the Renzo Piano's Shard of Glass at London Bridge, which eventually replace Lord Foster's Commerzbank Tower as the tallest building in Europe.
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Architecture as community
'We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.' Winston Churchill's view of the impact of architecture on society is probably more fashionable now than it has been for decades. In the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher deemed that there was no such thing as society, it was not widely accepted that designing attractive, environmentally friendly buildings was essential to our health and happiness at home and work. But in the new urbanism, which recognises our craving for community, the power of architecture to change lives is once again being recognised.
Like 30 St Mary Axe, The Business Academy in Bexley is designed by Foster and Partners. But these two buildings have more in common than simply being the work of the same architect. Both are designed to promote a sense of community in their users. The wealthy tenants of 30 St Mary Axe enjoy an office space which allows them to feel connected to the people working around them. The atria which cut into the building not only let light and air in, they enable workers to see to other floors. Everyone shares the same space; they are not simply stacked one on top of another in a series of boxes.
South of the river, in Thamesmead, the pupils of The Business Academy are also feeling the impact of the building they work in. Lord Foster's The Business Academy has plenty of facilities, like computerised whiteboards and a climbing wall, which would not usually be available to students in one of London's most deprived areas.
However, there is more to this place than the facilities it contains. Its design is changing lives. To work in such an exciting, challenging environment is a joy. The children want to go to this school, so truancy has plummeted. And in school, students are well behaved. One says: 'The building made us feel that someone cared about our futures.'
Because the academy is open-plan, everyone can see what everyone else is up to, and this has dramatically changed pupils' behaviour. Another student comments: 'There used to be problems with bullying and drug dealing, but everyone can see what's going on so you don't get any of that.' Buildings like The Business Academy can achieve real results. The proportion of students achieving five good grades at GCSE has leapt from 6% to 36% since the Academy was built.
However, it is easier to foster community spirit within a single building than it is within a city centre. Nevertheless, this is the aim of modern town planners and architects such as MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, the brains behind The Phoenix Initiative in Coventry.
Their success or failure is more difficult to measure. There is no clear-cut standard to judge them by, no GSCE to pass or fail. What The Phoenix Initiative set out to do was draw people back into an area of Coventry which had been blighted first by war, later by shoddy, ugly designs and finally, in the 1980s, by economic hardship. They wanted to create mixed-use space, places in which people could shop, work, relax – and live. And they have succeeded. The area encompassed by The Phoenix Initiative is now a property hotspot, with demand – and prices – soaring.
Creating that community vibe does not happen overnight, however. Nor can you persuade everyone to enter into the spirit. Vandals have been drawn to the public art like moths to a flame, and it remains to be seen whether The Phoenix Initiative really will bring about the rebirth of this once rundown district to make it a living, breathing part of Coventry once again.
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Architecture as art
One of the many themes that link this year's Stirling Prize finalists is violence. One – the Imperial War Museum North – is a representation of earth shattered by war, while three other buildings replace victims of violence. The Phoenix Initiative aims to revitalise a city bombed by the Luftwaffe more than half a century ago, while 30 St Mary Axe replaces the old Baltic Exchange, irreparably damaged by an IRA bomb in 1996. And then there is Dublin's The Spire, built on the site of a statue of Nelson which was destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1966.
But the creator of The Spire, architect Ian Ritchie, has turned away from the site's violent past and instead has chosen to create a work of architectural sculpture. As sculpture, The Spire is a controversial choice for the Stirling Prize. Some critics have argued that if this is architecture, then surely Antony Gormley's Angel of the North could qualify, too.
Surely The Spire breaks the architectural rule that form should follow function? But perhaps its form does have function. This is not just sculpture, and it is more than a groundbreaking piece of engineering. Its function is to give focus to O'Connell Street. It provides a central orientation point for visitors and an icon for Dublin's skyline. Sceptics may slyly joke that The Spire is pointless, but others might argue that such an attraction is essential for a modern European city.
The Kunsthaus plays a similar role in Graz. As an art museum, the Kunsthaus has other functions – it houses exhibitions, it contains a shop and a café – but there can be no doubt that Peter Cook and Colin Fournier's spectacularly weird 'friendly alien' design was picked because the building itself would be a work of art, a talking point and, hopefully, a magnet for tourists as Gehry's Guggenheim has been in Bilbao, or as Libeskind's Jewish Museum has been in Berlin.
The Kunsthaus works as art on another level, too. Its exhibition spaces are not classically gallery-shaped. They are not blank, white cubes, but oddly shaped, curved spaces. This presents a challenge for artists wanting to display works there. Sometimes, they have to create special works just for the Kunsthaus, so in that sense, it almost becomes a part of the artwork itself. And the Kunsthaus is a canvas, too. Underneath its skin are lights which can be combined like pixels to create an enormous but low-tech matrix for media artists.
Traditionalists might shudder at the sight of such brash examples of architectural art nestling among historic buildings in Europe's cities. The Kunsthaus, for example, is actually joined to the Eisenere Haus, a mid-19th century building. But in a way, this is perfectly appropriate, for the Eisenere Haus was a pioneer, too. It was the first cast iron structure in Austria.
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