The biggest award in the UK for architecture, the Stirling Prize, was given out this weekend…to a building in Germany. Ah, but if you read the fine print, you see that the firm who wins “must be a RIBA member, but the building can be anywhere in the European Union.” The winner in question is the beautiful Museum of Modern Literature, designed by the top-tier David Chipperfield Architects. Here’s a little:

Judges of the Stirling Prize award described the museum as “simultaneously rich and restrained” and praised the architects for delivering style on a relatively small budget of about $17 million.

The judges called the building as “a small Acropolis” overlooking the River Neckar valley. Praising the subtly lit room holding the museum’s permanent collection, the panel said there was “a particular theatricality about this space, as though the reflections, refractions and multiple shadows from the small intense lights collectively represent the soul of the German imagination.”