For the Second Year in a Row, Zaha Hadid Wins the Stirling Prize

Neither prediction wound up playing out this year with the awarding of the Sterling Prize on Saturday evening. As we’d written back in mid-July when the short list for the Royal Institute of British Architects‘ top honor was announced, Hopkins Architects’ velodrome for the 2012 Olympics was picked as the favorite to win, and critics found that the two non-new, rehabed buildings that made the cut was a sign of the industry’s budding austerity. Instead, neither happened and the Sterling wound