THE Scottish parliament building emerged from its troubled past last night to claim one of the world’s most prestigious design prizes.

The £431m Holyrood building, which has become a byword for public sector incompetence, beat off stiff competition from some of Europe’s most impressive structures to win the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) 2005 Stirling prize for architecture.

Despite being an outside bet with bookmakers, judges decided that the avant garde design — the brainchild of Catalan architect Enric Miralles — was a more worthy winner than the other shortlisted buildings.

Runners-up included the BMW Central building in Leipzig, the Lewis Glucksman gallery in Cork, the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, the Jubilee Library in Brighton and the Fawood Childrens’ Centre in London.

The building finally opened last October, 10 times over budget and three years behind schedule and has been dogged by controversy and tragedy.

Both Miralles, its creator, and its principal sponsor Donald Dewar, the former first minister, died before its completion. After delays and cost increases, there was a year-long inquiry that uncovered a catalogue of incompetence.

Yet the aesthetic value of the building has seldom been questioned. The intricate design, realised by the joint Catalan-Scottish practice EMBT/RMJM, is one of richness and great complexity. Love it or hate it, the building has a unique style, neither in nor out of fashion, and is meant to evoke the Scottish landscape decorated with mysterious shapes and symbols.

David Lewis, a structural engineer working as Holyrood project director for Ove Arup & Partners, said delays and price rises were caused by a lack of control over the design, late delivery of drawings by the architects, the sheer complexity of the building and everincreasing security measures.

Lewis’s own work was, he said, “frequently invalidated” because Miralles changed the plans up until his death in 2000 from a brain haemorrhage.

Above all, a fantastic design was seen as more important than completing the building on time and on budget and the project limped its way from one disaster to another. ()

Earlier this year politicians were plagued by pigeons leaving droppings and feathers which fell through windows and air vents onto MSPs’ desks.

Temperatures peaked at almost 30C at times and MSPs and their assistants threatened to walk out. In November last year — a month after the building opened — 154 windows had to be replaced because of a “technical fault”.

A £500,000 consignment of special grass ordered to landscape the site was left to wither because of delays.

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