As Tom de Paor says: “Love architecture for its silence, in which lies its voice, its secret and powerful song.” He is quoting what he calls “the bible”, a 1957 book, In Praise of Architecture, by Gio Ponti, the Milanese architect and writer. In the original Italian, Ponti’s hymnal was called Amate l’Architettura — Love Architecture — a title de Paor prefers.

“Love architecture, both old and modern,” it begins. “Love it for its fantastic, adventurous and solemn creations; for its inventions; for the abstract, allusive and figurative forms that enchant our spirit and enrapture our thought. Love architecture, the stage and support of our life.”

De Paor, one of the brightest talents of Irish architecture, has every reason to love architecture. On a stage in London last Thursday he received the 2003 Young Architect of the Year award (Yaya).

Now in its sixth year, the award — sponsored by Corus, formerly British Steel, and Building Design, a newspaper for architects — aims to celebrate the best talent emerging from the next generation of architects. The jury was looking for “imaginative and powerful forward-looking ideas that are practically and aesthetically resolved and which generate a sense of excitement”.

Worth a modest £5,000, but a great deal more in prestige and recognition, the award is open to architects worldwide, aged 35 or under. Of the four other 2003 finalists, three — Fat, Piercy Connor and Urban Future Organisation — are London-based; the fourth, Patterns, comes from Los Angeles.

Although UK entries are particularly encouraged, previous Yaya winners have come from Switzerland and Slovenia as well as Britain and Ireland. Last year’s winner, Plasma Studio, is an Argentinian-German company based in London. Also settled in London and now well established on the British architectural scene is Niall McLaughlin, a Dubliner and the first winner of the award.

When McLaughlin won five years ago, he expected a lot. “It gives you and other people increased expectations,” he says, “and nothing happens.” Norman Foster said to him later: “I bet you expected you’d get lots of work, but didn’t.”

True, says McLaughlin. “It doesn’t introduce you to clients.”

De Paor, 35, already knows how it goes. He has been collecting plaudits for more than a decade, since he and Emma O’Neill won a national competition to build the visitor centre at the former Royal Gunpowder Mills at Ballincollig, Co Cork. Few of his contemporaries have amassed anything approaching the range of his experience, which includes a stint as architect-in-residence at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork.

De Paor burst on to the international scene at the Venice Biennale in 2000 with N3, his enigmatic peat pavilion. “N3 was the end of my architectural apprenticeship,” he says. “It was a masterpiece in the old sense of the word — the apprentice’s final piece of work. Although it was done quickly, it was very, very intense.”

A year later, he cut a dash in Tokyo when representing Ireland in the New Trends in Architecture in Europe and Japan exhibition, and won himself a small commission in the Niigata prefecture.

His “A13 artscape” — a project linking a series of open spaces along three miles of the A13 arterial corridor in east London — has been rolling along at its own pace for the past seven years.

His A13 light work, Holding Pattern, gave rise to a concept album by Tipper in 2001. He has made books and a series of art posters for construction hoardings — both in collaboration with Peter Maybury, the designer — and plotted a short film, Minus, which goes into production this summer.