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2013 RIBA Stirling Prize winner

Posted on the 24th of Oct 2013

Astley Castle by Witherford Watson Mann Architects has won the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize.

RIBA Stirling Prize originates from Sir James Stirling

Sir James Stirling is one of those architects whose influence and importance is far greater than the built work. Often a ‘prophet without honour in his own country’, he did not live long enough to achieve the public recognition and success his peers achieved after his untimely death. As a result some of his best work was done abroad, particularly in Germany. His career falls into two distinct phases and there were clear signs in his posthumously completed buildings and in his never-built designs that he was beginning to move into a third and much more interesting phase in the early 1990s.

Working in partnership with James Gowan he produced in the Leicester Engineering Building, one of the seminal buildings of the century. With its complex geometries and revolutionary use of materials the building pre-figured some very 21st century approaches. The red-brick experiments, as he termed them, continued with the History Faculty Building for the University of Cambridge and the Florey Building for Oxford University. He then changed tack and began to explore pre-fabrication with the Olivetti Training School and the housing at Runcorn New Town.