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Although Lord Richard Rogers is an estimable architect who thoroughly deserves most of the accolades given to him and his firm, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the 2009 Stirling Prize just awarded him seems more a product of his reputation and the high-profile nature of the commission for which he won than the superiority of the design itself.  What’s more, the most laudable aspect of the honored project wasn’t the design’s fulfillment of any particular programmatic requirement; it is the commission itself that warrants the most praise.

Each year the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awards the Stirling Prize to a British-based or RIBA-chartered architecture firm for projects built in the European Union.  Naturally, nominees for the prize typically befit its stature as “[British] architecture’s highest accolade.”  For 2009, the six shortlisted nominees included a stylish, elegant, and functionally innovative medical clinic, a finely-rendered sculptural wine cooperative, and a surprisingly cohesive multi-use urban development.

Some how, Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre beat them all, despite the lack of a visionary form, singular solution to the client’s needs, or potential to alter the trajectory of the profession.  To be sure, Maggie’s Centre is a fine example of warm, modern architecture that boldly livens up Fulham Palace Road.  But as a matter of “achievement through design,” both the Liverpool One and Kentish Town Health Centre projects are superior.

Despite having an oxymoron for its official name (”The Paradise Project”), Liverpool One is admirable for being that rarest of mega multi-use projects - the ones that retain a semblance of human scale and even manage to produce multiple architectural gems (e.g., the new BBC/Quakers Building on Hanover Street).  The best reason for not awarding the Stirling Prize to its designers (besides the strength of its competitor nominees) is that it simply isn’t finished yet.

As for Kentish Town Health Centre, designed by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris,  it is finished and deserves whatever honors it receives.  Whereas Maggie’s Centre is essentially a beautiful, large, modern house (albeit one owned by a hospital and occupied by cancer patients), the Kentish Town Health Centre is unlike most other clinics both stylistically and functionally, boasting a design that is integral to the effective dispensation of health services.

At least Maggie’s Centre also won the award it truly deserves: RIBA’s Client of the Year Award (every one of the six Stirling Prize nominees also won).  Nominally, Charing Cross Hospital was the client, but the real instigators behind Maggie’s Centre were Charles Jencks, whose wife Maggie lost her own battle with cancer, and Maggie’s nurse, Laura Lee.  Mr. Jencks and Ms. Lee set out to create a comfortable, home-like setting where cancer patients might focus on their illness in an empowering physical environment - essentially a more uplifting, intimate version of America’s Ronald McDonald Houses.

Thanks to their efforts, there are now six completed Maggie’s Centres throughout Britain, including ones designed by Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid; eight more are planned.  In an odd way, the impressiveness of Rogers’ contribution to the line of Maggie’s Centres is even diluted by the quality of earlier centers; apart from being wrought in Rogers’ stylistic mold, the design offers little functional innovation that might differentiate it from its siblings - incidentally, none of them won the Stirling Prize.

My misgivings about the 2009 Stirling Prize are admittedly (1) somewhat subjective (no surprise here) and (2) largely rest upon marginal differences between a crop of excellent nominees, which thus means that the jury of five could very well have selected Maggie’s Centre with complete earnestness.  But can anyone seriously argue that the committee blinded itself to the recent (and on-going) showdown between Lord Rogers, the modern master, and Prince Charles, the tradition-bound dilettante?

The architecture world - and all of Britain for that matter - was riveted by this past year’s kerfuffle between Prince Charles and Lord Rogers.  And until recently, it appeared that a bloodied Prince Charles had had the last word, since Lord Rogers’ modern proposal for an immense development in Chelsea was jettisoned in favor of what is expected to be a more…traditional design.

Is it not conceivable that the jury was swayed by the allure of “sticking it” to Prince Charles, bestowing the (royal family-sanctioned) highest honor of British architecture upon an unabashedly modern design by the very architect that seems to irritate the Prince most dearly?  It is certainly plausible - and a natural means by which the profession could affirm its devotion to progress and declare its disgust for subversive attempts to hinder it.

Why did the jury select Maggie’s Centre over Lord Rogers’ wine cooperative, which was also shortlisted?  Perhaps because Maggie’s Centre is in Prince Charles’ backyard, nestled amongst “traditional” buildings and thus most likely to raise the Prince’s ire.

The obvious question finally becomes whether Lord Rogers’ selection was worth it, if in fact Prince Charles was largely the motivation.  Maybe.

Related posts:  Prince Charles: Not evil, per se & Irony, part deux: Oh, the irony, Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings

View more images at ArchDaily and Jose Hernandez’s Flickr page.

Images courtesy RIBA Press Office.

[Update:  Time Magazine's architecture critic Richard Lacayo came to the same conclusion:  Did Britain's Stirling Prize Go to Richard Rogers as a Snub to Prince Charles?]