Walking tall: Hastings pier wins the Stirling architecture prize

Nicknamed The Plank, De Rijke Marsh Morgan’s stark wooden wonder – using timber reclaimed from previous fires – was praised for changing ‘the idea of what architecture is’‘This pier,” said the Earl of Granville, when he opened Hastings Pier in 1872, “appears to me to be a peerless pier – a pier without a peer – except, perhaps, the unfortunate peer who is now addressing you.” Now, 145 years on, after a chequered life of spectacula