Architects bridge the centuries for Thames prize

Zaha Hadid was yesterday named joint winner of a government-backed competition to build a new, inhabited bridge for London.

The move will help redeem the Iraqi-born architect's faith in the British establishment after her controversial "glass-necklace" design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House failed to win funding from the Millennium Commission. To her fury, it emerged this month that amember of her opera-house design team, Percy Thomas Partnership, had been asked to design the Wales Millennium Centre for the same site.

Ms Hadid, who won an international competition with her design, was quoted as saying the move was "a total farce".

But she was delighted to have won yesterday's competition jointly with Antoine Grumbach & Associates of France.

Seven international architects were invited by the Royal Academy to enter designs for the competition to build a new inhabited bridge over the Thames, from Temple Gardens on the north bank to the London Weekend Television building on the south bank. The brief was to design a structure which would incorporate sufficient buildings - hotels, cafes, restaurants, offices - to make it commercially viable and to interest a developer in the project.

Ms Hadid's pounds 70m design incorporated commercial space at either end, but left the middle of the bridge empty to maintain river views. "It had to occupy the river as a public space but at the same time ... remain transparent," she said.

In contrast, Mr Grumbach's pounds 60m design centred on the notion of expanding the Jubilee Gardens over the river. A huge tower at one end would provide commercial space. "I wanted to make a promenade over the water," Mr Grumbach said.

Although the two architects share the honours, any of the seven designs submitted - or more than one - could be chosen by a developer.

John Gummer, the Secretary of State for the Environment, has thrown his weight behind the project. "London's river is our most under-valued asset and the time has come to value it properly," he said yesterday.

The last inhabited bridge over the Thames was destroyed in the mid-18th century. Originally a Roman pontoon bridge, it joined Southwark with the City and was known for displaying traitors' heads on poles.

All seven designs go on display from tomorrow until 18 December in the Royal Academy's Living Bridges exhibition.