Architecture news

• Praised, then razed: why is UK’s best building of 1996 being demolished?

  08-02-2025 17:00
  
  The Centenary Building in Salford was described as ‘dynamic and sophisticated’ when it won the first Stirling prize. Now it is to be knocked down as part of a huge developmentRowan Moore’s viewWhen judges awarded Salford’s Centenary Building the inaugural Stirling prize in 1996, they declared it “a dynamic, modern and sophisticated exercise in steel, glass and concrete”.The recognition as Britain’s best new building from the Royal Institute of British Ar
  
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• Even if France’s budget doesn’t tackle the public deficit, let’s give thanks it exists | Agnès Poirer

  08-02-2025 17:00
  
  Politics have sunk so low since Emmanuel Macron’s snap election, we’re just grateful when foretold catastrophes don’t materialiseHoura! Or rather, hurrah! On Monday, the French government, led by François Bayrou, our fourth prime minister in a year, did not fall. Our expectations have sunk so low since the July 2024 snap elections derailed our politics that we are grateful when catastrophes foretold don’t materialise. When Michel Barnier’s government fell bef
  
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• Don’t throw Salford’s groundbreaking Centenary Building in the bin | Rowan Moore

  08-02-2025 17:00
  
  The first winner of the Stirling Prize is a moment of ambition and distinctiveness in what might otherwise be an ocean of blandness. Let’s not demolish it, says the Observer’s architecture criticWhen the Stirling prize was launched nearly 30 years ago, the Royal Institute of British Architects wanted to create an award that would match the high level of media attention that the Turner prize for art and the Booker prize for fiction then attracted. It could hardly have expected that it
  
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• From the sublime to the cringeworthy: Tim Ross on Australia’s housing dream (and nightmare)

  08-02-2025 00:00
  The presenter and comedian’s live show feeds his obsession with the nation’s post-second world war suburban architectureGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAustralia’s state libraries have opened their archives to writer, TV presenter and half of the Merrick and Rosso comedy duo, Tim Ross, to feed his passion for post-second world war suburban architecture and an ongoing exploration of Australia’s obsession with home ownership.The trove of photographs the instituti
  
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