Notes to editors

1. For further information and images contact Lorna Gemmell in the RIBA Press Office, 020 7307 3761 or lorna.gemmell@inst.riba.org|
 
2. The prize is named in honour of Berthold Lubetkin, the Georgia-born architect who worked in Paris before coming to London in the 1930s to establish the influential Tecton Group. He is best known for the two Highpoint apartment blocks in Highgate and the Penguin Pool at London Zoo.
 
3. The Architectural Review is an international magazine about the art of architecture, which is sold in more than 130 countries. It is concerned with finding the best contemporary architecture world-wide, setting it within the contexts of theory, history and technology, and against complementary disciplines such as landscape and urban planning, interior and product design. Founded in 1896, The Architectural Review has always been committed to the broad principle of ecological sustainability, and to the belief that architecture, far from being an autonomous art, is a discipline dedicated to improving people's lives.
 
4. The RIBA Trust manages the cultural assets of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), including the internationally recognised collections of the British Architectural Library. It is the UK's national architecture centre, delivering the RIBA Awards and RIBA Stirling Prize (live on Channel 4); the Royal Gold Medal; International and Honorary Fellowships; Architecture Week (with Arts Council England and the Architecture Centre Network); a full programme of lectures, exhibitions, tours and other events; and an education programme.
 
5. Architecture Week, the annual celebration of contemporary architecture, takes place from 15 - 24 June 2007. Full details are at www.architectureweek.org.uk|. Over 800 events are taking place throughout the country. Architecture Week is organised and managed by Arts Council England and is an Arts Council England and Royal Institute of British Architects joint initiative, in association with the Architecture Centre Network. For further information contact Dorelia Adeane in the RIBA Press Office on 020 7307 3884 or dorelia.adeane@inst.riba.org|
 
6. The cast concrete Lubetkin Trophy is designed and made by artist Petr Weigl. For more information on his work go to www.petrweigl.com|
 
7. Full citation follows:
 
Southern Cross Station, Melbourne, Australia by Grimshaw (working within the Grimshaw Jackson Joint Venture)
Architect: Grimshaw (working within the Grimshaw Jackson Joint Venture)
Client: Leighton Contractors and Civic Nexus
Engineer: Winward Structures
Quantity surveyor: DCWC & Leighton Contractors
Services: Lincolne Scott Australia
Environmental: Advanced Environmental Concepts
Rail Infrastructure: Maunsell Australia
Signalling: GHD
DDA: Blythe Saunderson
Security: Honeywell
Acoustics: Marshall Day
Roof Shop Detailing: Precision Design
Contractor: Leighton Contractors
Contract value: unknown
Date of completion: December 2006
Gross internal area: 60,000 sq m
 

The original city in Melbourne is organised in a compact grid. The railway line was laid out along the edge of the dense centre and it used to terminate in a loose straggle of unprepossessing platform canopies and shacks. Across the lines, literally on the wrong side of the tracks, the vast sprawling docks extended to the sea. The railway lines, that used to mark the natural edge to the city, now form a barrier between the solid old town and the shiny new one.
 
The station is simply a big roof over a complex piece of transport infrastructure. It is open at the sides. It keeps some of the weather out, but really its vocation is as a civic structure. It is a point of entry to the city and, critically, it makes a space connecting the new and the old parts of the town.
 
The roof itself makes much of building physics. It is possible to describe the project in terms of structural forces, prevailing winds and the ventilation of diesel fumes. These environmental and structural issues are solved with great skill and they provide a fairly convincing narrative to justify the cheerful, wavy roof form. Its real significance lies in the fact that it makes a good space beneath and an extraordinary undulating landscape above. These roof elevations are often private fantasies for the architect, but here, surrounded by high-rise buildings, the upper surface becomes a topography that is visible to everyone.
 
When it comes to RIBA building visits, some architects get all the luck. The day we arrived, the local Aussie Rules team was playing in the nearby Telstra Stadium. We watched hordes of fans arriving by tram and train and streaming along the platforms towards high-level walkways that led them to the game. Ribbons of ETFE roof lights track along above the platforms and, by good design or happy accident, they cast lovely rivers of light that seemed to direct the Saturday crowds. It was a moment of inhabitation that appeared both robust and delicate.
 
The edge of the building that faces the old town is perhaps the most important façade. The architects have made an open loggia framed by the edge of the rising and dipping roof. This long elevation is only ever partly seen as you approach it along the deep cavernous streets of the city. You always understand it as a fragment of a much bigger thing. This lends a particular drama to the approach. You intuitively know that you are arriving at an important edge and, when you get there, you are greeted with an expansive new space at this threshold in the city. You see the great overarching structures intertwined with wavy tresses of light, you see the movement of trains through the structure, people meandering through and, all the time, the reflection of the old town thrown back by the glass. This powerful conflation of old and new, people and trains, structure and light make the Southern Cross station a worthy winner of this year's Lubetkin Prize.