Architecture Update: Deadline approaches for Stonehenge six

SIX FIRMS have until the end of this month to submit design ideas for a visitor centre at Stonehenge. They are: Edward Cullinan Architects, Future Systems, Jeremy Dixon and Edward Jones, Plincke Leaman & Browning, Colvin & Moggridge, and Birds Portchmouth and Russum Architects. They were selected in a competition organised by the National Trust and English Heritage.

But a new book, Stonehenge Tomorrow, argues that the centre will further damage a site that has suffered from 'an appallingly low standard of architecture and environmental design' since the Twenties. While welcoming the competition itself, the authors - Theo Crosby, professor of architecture at the Royal College of Art, and Peter Lloyd-Jones, professor of three-dimensional design at Kingston University - argue that the proposal to build an access road to the centre will mean that 'Stonehenge Down would never be the same again'. They believe the new centre should not be built at Larkhill, next to a major military installation, but farther west at Fargo Plantation - a view shared by the local planning authority, which has rejected the current scheme.