‘Bias’ claim over college award

A GLASGOW college should have won a top building award but “anti-Celtic bias” got in the way according to a leading architect.

Hastings Pier pipped City of Glasgow College in Cathedral Street to the in this year’s Stirling Prize.

Alan Dunlop, co-director of Aberfoyle-based Alan Dunlop Architect, said the judging panel behind the Stirling Prize had to “look beyond London and the south-east”. He said City of Glasgow College, should have won but said the judges favour the south east of England.

The only Scottish building to scoop the accolade since it was created in 1996 was the Scottish Parliament, designed by Spanish architect Enric Miralles.

Mr Dunlop said: “For the third year running, Reiach and Hall, now in conjunction with Michael Laird, were shortlisted but missed out on the big prize.

“Another Celtic practice, O’Donnell + Tuomey, has also been shortlisted five times but not won. Can there be an anti-Celtic bias within the Stirling Prize?”

He said the 193,000sq ft campus building was “a project of complexity and of a scale not seen in the city since the reign of Queen Victoria”.

The College building previ- ously won the 2017 Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) and RIBA Award for best current Scottish architecture.

Mr Dunlop added: “Since its inception in 1996, only three non-London based practices have won the Stirling Prize.

“It is time the prize lifted its head, looked much more beyond London and the South, and sought to spread its bounty further afield.”