New sponsor for Stirling Prize but still no cash for winner

The RIBA has lined up a sponsor for this year’s Stirling Prize – but admitted the award will once again come with no prize money.

It will be the third year in a row that British architecture’s most prestigious award will not have a cash prize for its winner.

The RIBA said its three year deal with new sponsor, property firm Almacantar, does involve money but added the amount is under wraps.

It said the cash will instead be used to support associated events as well as the prize itself.

Last summer, the institute had announced that the £20,000 cheque would return in 2015 after it signed a long-term deal with then headline sponsor, property investment company Brockton Capital.

But Brockton pulled out just before Christmas saying that it wanted to concentrate on helping out smaller architectural groups instead.

An RIBA spokeswoman said: “The winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize benefits from the immense acclaim, recognition and exposure associated with winning the UK’s most prestigious architecture award. This value is in no way diminished by the absence of a financial reward.”

The award has had problems attracting sponsorship before – in 2009 the winner, Rogers Stirk Harbour, would have walked away empty-handed had former RIBA president and former Rogers director Marco Goldschmied not stepped in and donated £20,000 through his Marco Goldschmied Foundation.

For the next three years the RIBA itself stumped up the cash after failing to find a new sponsor.

This year’s award will be made on October 15 with the jury chaired by incoming RIBA president Jane Duncan. Other jury members include previous winners Peter Clegg from Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios and Steve Tompkins from last year’s victor, Haworth Tompkins which won with its Everyman Theatre in Liverpool.

Almacantar is working on a number of high-profile developments in London including a Rafael Viñoly-designed scheme to redevelop Marble Arch Tower and, at the other end of Oxford Street, with Rick Mather Architects and Conran and Partners on the grade II listed Richard Seifert-designed Centre Point tower.

This year’s Stirling Prize is being contested by four schemes in London – Neo Bankside flats on the South Bank by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners, a Peabody housing scheme in Whitechapel by Niall McLaughlin Architects, a school in Tooting by AHMM and a university building in Greenwich by Heneghan Peng – and two outside the capital, Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery extension by MUMA and Lanarkshire’s Maggie’s centre by Reiach & Hall.

This story first appeared on Building Design