THE controversial Museum of Scotland, parachuted in the last minute on to the shortlist for this year's Stirling Prize, yesterday confounded its critics by coming a close second in Britain's most prestigious architectural award.
The monumental museum in Edinburgh beat off competition from the likes of Norman Foster's Reichstag building in Berlin, only to be pipped at the post for the #20,000 prize by the space-age NatWest Media Centre at Lords cricket ground.
In a ceremony at Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery, judges from the Royal Incorporation of British Architects announced that the museum, designed by architects Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth, would be the first official runner-up in the award's history.
The decision comes after a sensational turn of events in which assessors in Scotland had earlier refused to put the museum forward for inclusion in the Stirling Prize shortlist.
This prompted claims that rivalry among architects was fatally damaging the reputation of the profession north of the Border.
The Scottish regional judges responsible for selecting buildings for the RIBA declared the museum to be ''wilful and self-congratulatory'' and a regressive step for architecture in Scotland.
London-based judges disagreed, however, with Amanda Baillieu, editor of the RIBA Journal, dismissing such criticisms as ''narrow interpretations of style''.
Last night Ms Baillieu said that the museum's success as runner-up for the Stirling Prize not only justified the decision to include it late on the shortlist, but almost led to the building taking the award outright.
''It was a very close call,'' she said.
''In the end the voting split in favour of the NatWest Centre, but because of the support for the Museum of Scotland we felt we wanted to recognise what a great building it is. It proves all those critics of the museum wrong.''
Fellow judge - RIBA president Marco Goldschmied - praised Benson & Forsyth's achievement with the museum, but said that the uncompromising uniqueness of the NatWest Media Centre had been a difficult act to beat.
He added that the achievement of the #45m Museum of Scotland was a healthy signal for Scotland in the year that the Stirling Award ceremony was first held in Glasgow and in which an architecture policy is being developed by the Scottish Executive.
''I think Scotland has done a marvellous job leading the way by putting architecture on the political map,'' he said.
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