The Stirling Prize is awarded to “the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year”. That’s quite different from the tagline “Britain’s best new building”, with the “evolution of architecture” suggesting innovation, rather than simply quality; and indeed the relevance of “new”ness is arguable as well.

Thanks to covid-19, last year’s shortlist was pulled forward to this year, with the net result that all the shortlisted buildings were completed in 2019. That’s something we’re going to have to get used to – from next year, all shortlisted buildings will have to provide a year’s worth of energy bills to provide real-world validation of sustainability claims.

One reading of the Stirling Prize is that the award has political as much as architectural meaning – a message from the architectural profession to the wider world at a point where it is paying architecture more attention than usual.

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