The most interesting architecture story of recent months is neither Adrien Brody’s Oscar for playing an architect, nor Donald Trump’s executive order “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture”. It was the revelation, late last year, that the first building to win the prestigious Stirling Prize is now scheduled to be demolished.
The building, the University of Salford’s Centenary Building, was only completed in 1995 and for nearly a decade it has been largely vacant. The plans to knock it down have frustrated those who argue that it is greener to repurpose a building than to replace it. Former Riba president Jack Pringle has suggested that all Stirling Prize winners should be “listed”, introducing more regulatory barriers to changing or replacing them. But if architects did a better job of making beautiful, practical and adaptable buildings, would such protections really be needed?
About the same time as the Centenary Building was receiving its plaudits from the architectural establishment, the iconoclastic thinker Stewart Brand published a book and presented a BBC television series, both titled How Buildings Learn. Brand was unsparingly critical of much contemporary architecture, but his work was much more than a grumble about carbuncles.
