Chipperfield's Museum of Modern Literature Takes Stirling

LONDON (AFP) — Germany’s Museum of Modern Literature, a pavilion-like building which perches on top of a rock plateau, won Britain’s top prize for architecture Saturday.

The building in Marbach am Neckar, southern Germany, designed by Britain’s David Chipperfield Architects won the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Stirling Prize, which is worth 20,000 pounds (29,000 euros, 41,000 dollars).

Previous winners have included the Richard Rogers Partnership and Foster and Partners.

The judges described the building, as “simultaneously rich and restrained”.

“This is a remarkably low-cost building in a high-cost country at just 2,180 pounds per square metre,” they added.

“You can see that every penny spent has been carefully considered but that the right way to do things has always been chosen over the cheapest.”

Other buildings in the running for this year’s prize included the Dresden station redevelopment in Germany, the Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal and the America’s Cup building in Valencia, Spain.

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