Terminal of Madrid Airport awarded the Stirling Prize 2006

London - The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awarded the prestigious Stirling Prize on Saturday to Richard Rogers and his collaborators for the design of the new Madrid-Barajas International Airport terminal, the AP agency reported.
    The project for the more than one-kilometer-long glass terminal was selected from five other buildings realized in the European Union. RIBA praised particularly the complexity of the project, which is not only architecturally interesting but also meets the highest demands for functionality and passenger comfort. The most prestigious British award for architects is endowed with a sum of £20,000 (more than 830,000 crowns).
    "It is the most amazing building I have worked on in the last few decades," said Rogers at the award ceremony regarding the terminal, whose construction took six years and cost six billion euros (almost 170 billion crowns). It was put into operation on February 4 this year, and the capacity of Madrid airport has doubled as a result.
    Richard Rogers has previously designed, for example, the massive London Millennium Dome or the Centre Georges Pompidou museum in Paris. In this year's competition, he had another project in the running: the building of the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff.
    The award bears the name of British architect Sir James Stirling, who died in 1992. Only an architect who is a member of RIBA and carries out a building project within the EU can receive it. This year it was awarded for the eleventh time.