The Sunday Times

Undoubtedly in the ascendent, Irish architecture has had much to celebrate in recent years. However, it is still too soon to break open the bubbly, or at least not the cava, the "champagne" made by the Catalans. The biennial European Union prize for contemporary architecture - the Mies van der Rohe Award, established in 1988 and worth ¤50,000 - will be presented in Barcelona tomorrow. In a departure, the name of the seventh winner of the award is being kept under wraps, Oscars-style, until the last moment. One thing that can be said with certainty, however, is that none of the prizes for "conceptual, technical and constructional excellence and innovation" in architecture will be coming back to Ireland this year. For the first time since 1994, no Irish projects feature among the 40 finalists. In 1999, O'Donnell and Tuomey's multi-denominational school in Dublin's Ranelagh made the final cut, as did Group 91's Temple Bar framework plan two years before that.