RIBA Stirling Prize 2013

The Giant’s Causeway lies in Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast World Heritage Site, a landscape of cliffs formed by hexagonal basalt stones, agricultural landscapes and cliffside walks. Utilising the large difference in level across the site, two folds are created in the landscape. One, extending the line of the ridge, accommodates the building. The second, extending the level of the road, screens the car park from view.

The two folds create strong lines in the landscaping, drawing all the man-made interventions together and organising the disparate requirements of the Visitorsʼ Centre into a singular intervention in the landscape.

There is no longer a building and landscape but building becomes landscape and the landscape itself remains spectacular and iconic.

This elegant, powerful visitor centre appears to be born of its place; the irregular lines of basalt columns grow and recede into the landscape to form the building edges, with the building roof a part of the dramatic landscape.

Visitor centres are hard to do; this one serves as shop, café and exhibition without any one function overpowering what is a simple, telling piece of architecture.

Visitor centres are normally self-effacing buildings, fulfilling the needs of visitors while being careful not to draw the limelight away from their main attraction. This one pulls of that difficult trick of being a destination
venue in its own right without upstaging the principal event – the centre is invisible from the causeway, which is set one kilometre apart.

The internal space is made from a large concrete soffit with slices of roof lights and slots between the basalt allowing natural light deep into the centre.
Location details

The world-famous Giant’s Causeway, some 50-60 million years old, is located on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland in County Antrim, around three miles from the closest town of Bushmills.