Architecture Update: An eye to 2001

NOW that the nine members of the Millennium Commission - a new government body charged with spending money, raised mostly through the National Lottery, on public works to celebrate the turn of the millennium - have been appointed, applicants for a share of the estimated pounds 75m in annual proceeds are waiting to see which projects it will support. Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for National Heritage, has said at least one major project must be supported in each member country of the UK. The list includes 'Albertropolis', a pounds 153m underground mall linking the museums of South Kensington to the Albert Memorial, London; a pounds 140m opera house for Cardiff; the Museum of Modern Art, London ( pounds 80m); a pounds 55-60m facelift for London's South Bank; a pounds 150m redevelopment of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and a Festival of Britain-inspired celebration on the Greenwich peninsula in south-east London. The most controversial proposal comes from Jocelyn Stevens, chairman of English Heritage, who would like the commission to help to fund a visitors' centre and tunnel under Stonehenge at a likely cost of pounds 300m.