Wry humour library wins British award

A library in a working class area of south London has won this year's top architecture award in Britain.

The library, in the suburb of Peckham, was said by the judges as innovative, colourful and humorous.

A BBC correspondent describes the building as an eccentric-looking structure that appears as if it is about to fall down.

But the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Marco Goldschmied, praised it as a building to make people smile.

He said the fact that the public, including young people, were flocking to it, and enjoyed going there, proved that architecture was much more than just pretty shapes -- it was actually something which made a community work.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service