Architecture Update: In the money

THIS year's pounds 63,000 Premium Imperiale Award for architecture has been awarded to the American Frank Gehry. Previous recipients have been I M Pei, who designed the pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, the late Sir James Stirling, and Gae Aulenti, designer of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Mr Gehry, who has never built in Britain, is currently the visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture in

London.

The Premium Imperiale award - which is also given for sculpture, film/theatre, music and painting - is referred to by its Japanese sponsors as the 'Nobel Prize' of the arts, but it no longer carries the highest reward. This month the Danish brewer Carslberg announced a biennial architectural award with a staggering prize of pounds 200,000. The winner was the Japanese architect Tadao Ando.