The Stirling Prize has always been about more than just the architecture. Each year the shortlist offers a snapshot of the profession’s preoccupations, the concerns of the jury, and perhaps even something about where we are as a society. This year’s list is no different, though it feels like a respectable rather than vintage crop of contenders.

Many will have been surprised that Allford Hall Monaghan Morris’ Tower Hamlets Town Hall did not even make the longlist. The practice’s brilliant reworking of the former Royal London Hospital, a major civic project that combines bold new interventions with the careful restoration of a grade II listed building, seemed an obvious candidate. That it won a RIBA London regional award and still failed to make the final 20 was even more peculiar.

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