Jonathan Morrison
Stirling Prize 2024: Elizabeth Line on London-dominated shortlist
The £18 billion transport scheme is a surprise contender to win the UK’s most prestigious prize for architecture
The £18 billion Elizabeth Line transport scheme in London is a surprise contender to win the UK’s most prestigious prize for architecture, despite being delivered £4 billion over budget and three and a half years late.
The shortlist for the annual Stirling Prize, inaugurated in 1996 and conferred by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), includes the Elizabeth Line, for which ten new stations were built and 31 upgraded, and a masterplan for King’s Cross, by the firm of Allies and Morrison, which regenerated a formerly grim area over 23 years by creating new streets and squares and cleaning up the area around the Regent’s Canal.
However, the favourite to scoop the prize when the winner is announced on October 16 is the restoration of the National Portrait Gallery, by Jamie Fobert and Purcell, one of four London schemes on the six-strong shortlist, continuing a capital-centric approach, which attracts annual opprobrium. Changes to the grade I listed institution include a new entrance with bronze doors designed by Tracey Emin and a new light-filled learning centre.
The National Portrait Gallery restoration is expected to win the prize (JIM STEPHENSON)
The regeneration of King’s Cross makes the list (JOHN STURROCK)
The fourth London project on the shortlist is Chowdhury Walk, by Al-Jawad Pike, which took an inauspicious plot in Hackney previously occupied by garages and created 11 homes, of which seven are for social housing. Simple or sensitive, it makes all the right political noises: last year’s winner was the similarly understated and brick-built John Morden daycare centre, by Mae.
“Are there really no outstanding works in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland? This is now becoming the London architecture awards,” said Ian Ritchie, the Royal Academician and former chairman of the Stirling Prize jury, describing the shortlist as “boring”.
Two more regeneration schemes complete the line-up. Park Hill phase two is the latest stage in the modernisation of the huge brutalist structure that sits on a hillside overlooking Sheffield city centre and is the subject of Standing at the Sky’s Edge, the award-winning musical by Richard Hawley.
Chowdhury Walk in Hackney, east London (RORY GARDINER)
At the other end of the scale is Wraxall Yard, Dorset, by Clementine Blakemore, a dilapidated dairy farm converted into highly accessible holiday accommodation.
With so many refurbishments on the list, it is perhaps all the more surprising that the long-awaited reopening of Battersea Power Station, albeit mainly as a shopping mall, designed by Wilkinson Eyre, did not get a look-in.
“The Stirling Prize has run its course after nearly 30 years,” Ritchie added. “If it remains the Riba’s main marketing exercise to the public, then it needs to select exceptional architecture: it’s too often a shortlist of average to good architecture.”
Park Hill in Sheffield (TIM CROCKER)
Wraxall Yard, Dorset (LORENZO ZANDRI)
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