‘The best ever Stirling winner’ – profession reacts to McLaughlin victory

Jonathan Harvey, co-founder, Holland Harvey
Without a doubt a masterclass in beautifully detailed and composed spaces. Fantastic to see that the Stirling Prize is celebrating a commitment to sustainable design. However, perhaps a missed opportunity to focus on projects with a stronger social message.

Becca Thomas, creative director, New Practice 
The library is a series of beautiful and considered spaces. The project also benefits from a client with plenty of resource and money to deliver this beauty. However, I would have preferred to see something more resourceful and resilient attain this accolade.

Alan Dunlop of Alan Dunlop Architects
Anyone sat in an empty coal bunker, at 3am in mid-January, during the coming winter blackout could see that Magdalene College library was the clear winner. Students will want to close their laptops, turn off their smartphone and pick up a book.

Not only the greatest building built in the UK in the last year, but the best ever Stirling Prize winner

More than just sophisticated. The building is extraordinarily well crafted; the interiors are flooded with light; the spaces are considered and the materials are all well chosen, warm and tactile. All brought together with a profound sensitivity and sensibility. Many congratulations to Níall McLaughlin and his team.

At last the correct decision from the RIBA judges. Not only the greatest building built in the UK in the last year, but the best-ever Stirling Prize winner.

Karen Cook, co-founder of Spice
The interiors of Magdelene College's New Library  are reminiscent of Louis Kahn's Exeter Library, with humanely scaled intimate nooks in wood bathed in natural light. Equally, the exterior makes sensitively scaled modern forms with traditional materials. I'd love to be a student there.

Very deserving winner. And not even too beige https://t.co/5MTWSYBP5r

— Rowan Moore (@RowanMoore) October 13, 2022

Muyiwa Oki, RIBA president elect
The library is a fantastic building, elegantly detailed and fabulously looking. [I wish] it could be more open to the public. But I congratulate the team at Níall McLaughlin who had the painstaking task of guiding this project to fruition.

John McRae, ORMS
The New Library is a worthy and well-deserved winner of the Stirling Prize. A beautifully crafted, Louis Kahn-inspired, building that will be a delightful place to study.

I thought the Henley Halebrown Hackney New Primary School and 333 Kingsland Road was a strong contender with its bold form and civic presence, but the judges had a tough choice to make.

Source:Jim Stephenson

 

Delighted to see Níall win this year; this is one of the most beautiful well considered and executed buildings in the land. May it stand for centuries #StirlingPrize https://t.co/e0neVw2uXq

— Christopher Boyce (@MrBoyce) October 13, 2022