Zaha Hadid has created some original buildings overseas. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
Men like lists. We make lists of favourite cars, favourite actors, favourite goals. On the cultural side, we might list our favourite paintings, bands and restaurants. We like to argue about them, too - it's a quintessentially British way of bonding without revealing too much emotion (heaven forefend). So it seems only right to hazard a tentative list from that most male-dominated of professions, architecture, and take a look at the 10 most influential architects in the UK. I hope you'll all disagree with it.
At number one, we have Lord Foster. The architect's architect, down to the ubiquitous black polo-neck, Foster has set the tone and the standard for British architecture since sometime after hi-tech, if not before and during it. He's had his detractors - notably over the wobbly bridge incident - but is there any doubt he's still setting the pace with projects like the astounding Millau Viaduct?
At number two is his other Lordship, Richard Rogers. As well as advising Red Ken to build tall, Rogers is still at the forefront of architectural practice, winning a Pritzker this year and a Stirling win in 2006 for Terminal 4 of Madrid Barajas airport. There's a bit of an airport theme developing, however - he's now doing Heathrow's new Terminal 5 as well.
At three, and a late entry, we have 2007's Stirling winner, David Chipperfield. It's not all about gongs and honours, true, but Chipperfield's reinvigorated modernism, though not as widespread in the UK as it should be, is inspiring a generation of younger architects. His Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach is simply brilliant.
At four, we have Zaha Hadid, the front-running female. The famous diva may not build anything much in the UK, but she's created some highly original buildings overseas - so much so that the Design Museum is running an exhibition of her work. Now she just needs to sort out her website, which may prove once and for all that what works in concrete doesn't necessarily translate to the interweb.
Number five, the bad boy of architecture, Will Alsop. Again, he hasn't built much, but what he has certainly comes from the grab-you-by-the-nostrils school of uncompromising edifice-flinging (see Goldsmiths). Also famous for suggesting a supercity stretching from Liverpool to Hull.
Half-male, half-female (by which I mean there's two of them, not a hermaphrodite), and in at number six, Foreign Office Architects are very much the darlings of the architecture world. You'll know them best for the design of the London 2012 Olympics stadium, with its bubble-wrap-like canopy. Could we have won 2012 without it? Are we still glad that we did?
At number seven, and a dark horse, we have Eric Parry. As a professor he's influenced classloads of trendily-attired teenagers, and as an architect he's revolutionised the construction of offices (30 Finsbury Square), and deftly handled some of the more sensitive projects around, including the new Paternoster Square by St Paul's and the work on St Martin's-in-the-Fields. Quietly brilliant.
At number eight, I'm going to plump for Sir Terry Farrell, who is, no doubt, a controversial choice. He may be doing more business in Asia than Europe, you may loathe the MI6 building, but, as Edinburgh's chief architect, he's overseeing the redevelopment of one of the biggest stretches of port and waterfront in history. Anyone who can turn the area famous for Trainspotting into a place tourists want to visit deserves some sort of credit, no?
At nine, we have Sunand Prasad, the brand-spanking-new president of Riba, which is a bit like the National Farmers' Union for architects. It may not exert as much influence as it thinks it does, but it's still a powerful voice for the profession, and Mr Prasad is an accomplished architect in his own right.
Last but certainly not least: Allies and Morrison, who seem to be building everything at the moment, from the BBC Media Village (I've always wondered if this involves the appointment of an idiot, and, if so, how one applies) to the huge Blue Fin building behind the Tate Modern, which you'll either love or hate, and which, in my opinion, is totally wasted on the journalists inside, being somewhat fabulous.
There we have it. Any other names?
