The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa by Moriyama and Teshima Architects/Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects in joint venture; the Red Location Museum of the People’s Struggle in South Africa by Noero Wolff Architects; and the Terrence Donnelly Centre in Toronto, by Behnisch Architekten with architects Alliance are the three contenders for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) inaugural Lubetkin Prize, supported by The Architectural Review, for the most outstanding work of architecture outside the UK and the European Union by an RIBA member.

The prize is named in honour of Berthold Lubetkin, the Georgia-born architect who worked in Paris before coming to London in the 1930s to establish the influential Tecton Group. He is best known for the two Highpoint apartment blocks in Highgate and the Penguin Pool at London Zoo.

The presentation of the Lubetkin Prize will form the climax of the RIBA Awards dinner and ceremony, to be held at the London Hilton Hotel on Friday 23 June 2006, during Architecture Week. At the ceremony, the winners of the RIBA Awards and the RIBA European Awards, (both eligible for The RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects’ Journal) will also be announced.

At the announcement, Jack Pringle, RIBA President, said that he was "delighted that the RIBA in association with The Architectural Review has created the Lubetkin Prize. Not only will the prize highlight the significant achievements of our members across the globe, but it also serves to honour Berthold Lubetkin, who was an RIBA member who made a major impact on architecture internationally."

The Lubetkin Prize jury will visit all three shortlisted buildings before selecting the winner. The judges are RIBA President Jack Pringle, Professor Jeremy Till, Chair of the RIBA Awards Group and Paul Finch, Editor of The Architectural Review. Berthold Lubetkin’s daughter Sasha will present the winner of the Lubetkin Prize with a unique cast concrete plaque, based loosely on her father’s design for the Penguin Pool at London Zoo. It has been commissioned by the RIBA and designed and made by the artist Petr Weigl.

Architects Moriyama and Teshima / Griffiths Rankin Cook

The Canadian War Museum is the result of a joint venture between two long established father-son practices, one in Toronto, the other in Ottawa – and a strong, determined client. The design hand of septuagenarian Canadian-Japanese architect Raymond Moriyama – architect of Toronto’s City Hall – is clearly to be seen here, but Alexander Rankin was crucial to its refined realisation. The building also picked up an International award at the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland this week.

The chaos and destruction of war has been choreographed into assured spaces and forms with raw materials, to create an iconic and successful building. Emerging from the landscape on one side, it faces the town on the other. The architectural spaces of remembrance and reconciliation, along with the rooftop walk which collects you from one corner of the front of the building, sweeps you up and over the grassed roof and deposits you at the back, make the building very special.

The building takes a number of contemporary architectural tropes and fuses them in a remarkably coherent manner. The wondrous routes over and through the building set up a series of relationships – sometimes poignant, sometimes thrilling – between past and present, inside and outside, the brutal and the human.

Interior of Canadian War Museum

This is a very large building (about 300m in length) and includes a huge amount of material at every scale. The dilemma was several-fold: how to plan for large numbers of one-off visitors, while also creating a memorial for those who come more than once; how to respond to the city on one side and a more pastoral environment on the other; and how to create a civic facility for the city as a whole. The architectural solution works extremely well, starting with an impressive entrance lobby (large enough to seat 600 for dinner) which can also act as a through route. The diagram of circulation and facilities is admirably clear, separating the main intense exhibition areas from other facilities and more intimate spaces, which include a memorial chapel, a regeneration hall, and an artwork 'corridor'.

Good but discreet access provision is another welcome feature of this museum. Not surprisingly, the museum has proved highly popular with the Canadian public, both young and old. The strong creative relationship between architects and client has produced an outstanding building.

Architects: Behnisch Architekten with architects Alliance

Laboratories are frequently dispiriting places, devoid of any architectural idea other than functional adjacencies. The Terence Donnelly Centre proves that this need not be so. It is a striking contribution to the university area of Toronto, and redefines its immediate architectural context, partly by contrast and partly by connection. It is a sophisticated and elegant urban response which makes a virtue of its proximity to the existing university building.

A nicely judged landscaped approach leads to a generous lobby and entry sequence, which would grace any headquarters building. A public ground floor thoroughfare pays homage to Le Corbusier with light chutes and free form mosaic clad, asymmetrical pods - an indication of the molecular science discussed within - which provide ground floor meeting rooms. An atrium garden, filled with bamboo trees, rises six storeys, giving occupants a spectacular view as they emerge from their laboratories. Further up the building, punched bays provide break-out spaces for the researchers, with views across the city.

The laboratories themselves benefit from a relatively high degree of natural light, an absence of suspended ceilings, and a clear plan form, with labs on the east side, a central service spine, and a circulation corridor on the west side. The architecture as a whole is an exercise in combining strong forms with environmental thinking. Each elevation is treated separately, playing deftly with differing elevational treatments: the southern double-glazed facade proves a strong, transparent face to the main street entrance, and appropriate solar and acoustic control. Fritting and coloured panels are used on the other facades in response to the activity behind (workspace or circulation space).

The new sciences demand new spaces and this building dextrously provides them. Airy laboratories, a multitude of informal break-out spaces for those snatched conversations in which 80% of breakthroughs are made, a connection back to nature and an entrance sequence to die for – together these summon up the dynamism of discovery.