UK Pavilion wins Lubetkin Prize

Heatherwick Studio has won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Lubetkin prize for the most outstanding work of international architecture by an RIBA member.

MRC ran the competition for the UK pavilion which was commissioned by the Foreign Office.

The pavilion, currently showing at the Expo, has been an extremely successful emblem for Britain and its architects. Named the Seed Cathedral,it is made-up of 60,000 fibre optic rods each containing a seed.

As the citation explains’..what is so special about the pavilion is the way the outside is carried through to the inside – it’s one idea, one material and all the more powerful for it: the building is its content, the content is the building.’

Speaking about the building, the RIBA Lubetkin Prize jury chair and RIBA President, Ruth Reed said:

‘The RIBA Lubetkin Prize is an important prize as it epitomises how international the business of architecture is. Many architects are as well-known for their overseas work as they are for what they have done in their own country and in some cases, more so. This year’s shortlist represents some of the most innovative architecture of the decade so picking a winner was more difficult than ever.’

For MRC there is a particular connection because Malcolm was also a great personal friend of Berthold Lubetkin, the Georgia-born architect who worked in Paris before coming to London in the 1930’s to establish the influential Tecton Group. Malcolm (with Peter Coe) wrote the book Lubetkin and Tecton (Triangle Press), now out of print.

Read more about our role in running the competition for the building.