094/2005 | 15 October 2005

The Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood has been declared the winner of one of the most prestigious architecture awards in the world.

The tenth anniversary RIBA Stirling Prize Award was presented to representatives from the joint architecture partnership which designed the building, EMBT/RMJM, at an official awards ceremony dinner in the Museum of Scotland tonight. It is the first time in the award's ten year history that a building in Scotland has won the prize.

The Scottish Parliament's Presiding Officer George Reid MSP was a guest at the ceremony. After the event he said:

"The Stirling Prize confirms the Scottish Parliament as Britain's most important new building.

"The judges have decided that Holyrood is not just a working legislature but a work of art - constructed on a world-heritage site where the history and land of Scotland fuse together.

"This, our eighth architectural award in the past year, honours all those involved in the creation of the Parliament."

The Parliament was one of six buildings shortlisted for the award which recognises the building which has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year.

The five other buildings competing for this year's Stirling Prize were:

•  BMW Central Building, Leipzig, Germany

•  Fawood Children's Centre, Harlesden, London

•  Jubilee Library, Brighton, Sussex

•  Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College, Cork, Ireland

•  McLaren Technology Centre, Woking, Surrey

The Stirling Prize jury, which comprised of architecture specialists and lay judges from the arts visited the Scottish Parliament on 5 September and met today to pick the winner.

The judges were:

•  Jack Pringle - President Elect of the RIBA

•  Isabel Allen - Editor, The Architects' Journal

•  Joan Bakewell - broadcaster and writer

•  Max Fordham - environmental engineer

•  Piers Gough - architect, writer and broadcaster

Holyrood's previous awards

The Stirling Prize is the eighth major architecture prize the Scottish Parliament building has been awarded.

On 5 October, Holyrood received the 2005 RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture , which recognises the best new building in Scotland .

In June the Parliament building was picked from over 500 entrants to be one of seventy-one new buildings from across the UK and Europe honoured for excellence in design quality and their contribution to the local environment when it received a RIBA award at a ceremony in London.

It was from this 'long-list' of seventy-one that Holyrood was chosen to be one of six eligible for the Stirling Prize.

Also in June, the Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood received a specialist award at the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust's Building of the Year Award 2005 at London's Savoy Hotel.

In May, the Parliament was a double-winner at the Scottish Design Awards ceremony, picking up the Best Publicly Funded Building prize and the main award, the Architecture Grand Prix .

These honours added to the Parliament receiving Spain's greatest architectural prize in April from the VIII Biennial of Spanish Architecture. Judges awarded the building, the Manuel de la Dehesa prize , which is known as the 'Premio de Arquitectura'.

This award followed Holyrood receiving Edinburgh Architectural Association's prestigious centenary medal in March.

The building was also a finalist in the 2005 Mies van der Rohe European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, and was listed as one of Europe's 'works of exceptional quality'.

Background

In July 1998 a Spanish architectural practice led by Enric Miralles, (EMBT) in partnership with Edinburgh based RMJM (EMBT/RMJM), was chosen to design the new Parliament building. Enric Miralles was one of the world's premier architects, internationally renowned for his work throughout the world, including acclaimed buildings in Barcelona, Alicante and Utrecht. RMJM are one of the largest and most successful architectural practices in the UK and have an international reputation for their recent work in Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Petersburg. Enric Miralles died from a brain tumour aged 45 in July 2000.

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