The £18 billion Elizabeth Line transport scheme in London is a surprise contender to win the UK’s most prestigious prize for architecture, despite being delivered £4 billion over budget and three and a half years late.
The shortlist for the annual Stirling Prize, inaugurated in 1996 and conferred by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), includes the Elizabeth Line, for which ten new stations were built and 31 upgraded, and a masterplan for King’s Cross, by the firm of Allies and Morrison, which regenerated a formerly grim area over 23 years by creating new streets and squares and cleaning up the area around the Regent’s Canal.
However, the favourite to scoop the prize when the winner is announced on October 16 is the restoration