We knew the RIBA Stirling Prize was really working when prime minister Tony Blair said in 2000 during the first televised Stirling: 'There was a time when people thought that all modern architecture was rubbish and basically the only building that was good was the one you saw in history books. Now, we should be really proud of our heritage-it's fantastic-but what's happening now is that we're getting great new buildings.' The RIBA had invited him to present the fifth edition of the prize and he'd agreed, but something of greater importance came up. So he sent a video instead in which he continued: 'I think there's a whole different type of agenda around architecture and design in public policy terms that would have been considered eccentric five or six years ago.'
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