What do the awards tell us?

摘要

Already our published crop of 119 RIBA awards from England, Wales and Northern Ireland contains intriguing possible contenders for the Stirling Prize. There will be a handful more to choose from - Scotland declared too late for this issue's deadline. The national and EU awards are announced on June 19, then the Stirling Prize shortlist on July 17, and the Prize itself on October 16. As ever, since the RIBA started giving awards for individual buildings in 1966, one must compare apples and pears. We don't envy the judges the job of setting Adam Richards' universally-praised little Ditch-ling Museum of Art and Craft (£1.1m, RIBAJ November 2013) against Caruso St John's ingeniously historicist Tate Britain revamp (£23m, RIBAJ December 2013), say, or either of those against Renzo Piano's Shard (several hundred million, RIBAJ September 2012). These have already got two stages further than Zaha Hadid's Riverside Museum in Glasgow, which in 2012 didn't even make the Scottish shortlist. No such rude treatment for double Stirling winner Zaha this time round: her fine Aquatics Centre in London's Olym- pic Park has emerged sleekly from its 2012 chrysalis to pick up a regional award.