The Stirling prize goes to the Everyman theatre

1. The definite article the is used with proper nouns when they denote the whole family: The Browns lived in this house 10 years ago.

2. The is also used with names of persons that are modified by a particularizing attribute: He was again the Elvis Presley everybody knew.

3. You say the with the following geographical names:

a) names of oceans, seas, rivers, lakes and canals: the Atlantic (Ocean), the Red Sea, the Nile, the Panama Canal;

b) mountain ranges which usually have plural names: the Rockies, the Alps;

c) island groups which usually have plural names: the British Isles, the Canaries;

d) regions and provinces: the Far East, the Crimea, the Caucasus, the south of Spain;

e) countries and states which include words republic, union, kingdom, state: the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States (of America).

We also use the with plural names: the Netherlands, the Philippines. Exceptions: the Congo, the Lebanon

f) the following city is also used with the definite article: the Hague

4. Normally the definite article is used before the names of these places:

hotels the Hilton, the Ritz

restaurants/pubs the Bombay Restaurant, the Red Lion (pub)

theatres the National Theatre, the Palace Theatre

cinemas the ABC, the Odeon

museums/galleries the British Museum, the Tate Gallery

But do not use the with the names of the shops, banks, hotels, restaurants etc. which are named after the people who started them. These names end in s or 's:

restaurants Maxim's, Macdonalds, Luigi's Itaiian Restaurant

shops Harrods, Selfridges

banks Lloyds Bank, Barclays Bank

hotels Claridge's

5. You use the definite article before the names of places, buildings etc. with "of": the Great Wall of China, the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, the Bank of England

6. You use the with the names of newspapers and magazines: the Times, the Daily Telegraph.

But use no article with the names of Russian newspapers: I prefer to read Moscow News in English.

7. The definite article is also used with the names of cardinal points: the North, the East, the South, the West

The Stirling prize goes to the Everyman theatre

Behind the glamour, Europe's architectural profession is going through rapid change

At a glitzy £180 ($288) a head reception held on October 16th, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) declared that the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool (pictured) by Haworth Tompkins had won this year's Stirling prize, Britain's most prestigious award for architects' buildings. It had fought off a tough set of competing designs, which included Zaha Hadid's London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic games and the Shard, Britain's tallest skyscraper. The glamour of the six buildings shortlisted for the award may at first make the architecture business seem that it is going from strength to strength. But behind the glitz is an industry suffering from shrinking demand and rapid structural change.

The market for architectural services in Britain and across Europe has been hit hard since the financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2012 the sector shrank by 28% according to the Architects Council of Europe (ACE), an industry body—much faster than falls in GDP or construction output. In Britain, architects suffered much worse, as the demand for their services shrank by as much as 40%, the RIBA reckons.

Since 2012, even as Europe's construction sector began to grow again, the demand for architectural services has flatlined. Structural factors unrelated to construction volumes seem to explain the profession's relative decline. Other professionals offering similar services, such as engineers and surveyors, have continued to poach some of their workload since the recession. Worse still, their main business—designing new buildings—has come under threat from a shift towards cheaper system-building methods, minimising the need for their pricey bespoke design services. Many commercial buildings, such as the latest generation of hotels built by Travelodge, a budget chain, are now made of prefabricated containers in order to cut down on designers' fees. Governments are also promoting modular construction, which requires less input from architects, partly because of the technique's eco-friendly credentials. The European Commission has said that by 2020 it wants 5% of new buildings to be built out of prefabricated panels made of straw.

In spite of falling workloads, the number of architectural practices across Europe has increased since 2008. But this has substantially been the result of architects at small- and medium-sized firms being forced to go freelance: 80% of practices now comprise of less than five people, reckons Ian Pritchard of ACE. To survive, larger practices, such as those that normally win the Stirling prize, have had to look abroad for design work in countries with building booms, such as China and Dubai.

Architects have also been forced to adopt more ingenious ways to cut costs. The use of remote-controlled drones to conduct surveys and take aerial photos has slashed the costs of inspecting tall buildings. The time taken to draw up plans has been reduced by computerised-design systems, such as CAD and BIM. Others have outsourced drawing work to countries including India and Peru to save money.

But even with deep cost-cutting, architects are still struggling to attract clients. In Poland, in spite of construction output growing over the past year, demand for design services has continued to shrink. And in Britain, RIBA data suggest that Britain’s booming construction sector has yet to benefit architects as much as it has builders. Long-term prospects also look dismal. Even in 2025 the construction market in Western Europe will be 5% below its 2007 peak, according to Global Construction Perspectives, a consultancy.

Taken together, this has damaged animal spirits in the industry. At a recent conference in London, one architect said that the traditional small-practice model will face “extinction” within the next decade—a common feeling in some parts of the profession. Put off by the poor job prospects, only about a third of architecture students in Europe now qualify to practise; in the past, the vast majority did. Although builders—and even those using factory-built systems—will always need help with design, fewer architects than ever sit comfortably at the glamorous pinnacle of the construction industry. As Herman Hertzberger, a prize-winning Dutch architect, wryly noted of the profession's future in 2011, “we’re not buried next to the king any more”.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1109