Don’t throw Salford’s groundbreaking Centenary Building in the bin

Doomed? The Centenary Building at Salford University. Photograph: Colin McPherson/The Guardian

When the Stirling prize was launched nearly 30 years ago, the Royal Institute of British Architects wanted to create an award that would match the high level of media attention that the Turner prize for art and the Booker prize for fiction then attracted. It could hardly have expected that its first winner would still be causing controversy a generation later.

There are two arguments for keeping the University of Salford’s Centenary Building.