In Britain alone, the list of Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners' latest projects is a definition of power architecture. Take the giant bubble-like "biomes" of the £53m Eden Project in Cornwall, steadily nearing completion. Or the transformation of the derelict Battersea Power Station in London into a fun palace, designs just approved. Then there are the designs for an ambitious extension to Paddington Station - the most sensitive project yet because of the presence of Brunel's original alongside. Do not forget his large helping of forthcoming second-generation Lottery projects apart from Eden, including the National Space Science Centre in Leicester and (as different as could be) a new multi-level spa complex in Bath, alongside restored and re-opened Georgian baths. It's as historic a context as you can get, though his recent coup - beating all comers to the plum job of extending the Royal College of Art, right next to the Royal Albert Hall - comes close.

Waterloo International terminal, 1993

Go back a bit, and you find that the two architectural projects that most powerfully marked the swing back to modernism at the start of the 1990s both came from this stable. They were the British Pavilion at Expo '92 in Seville, complete with its beautiful, cooling, water-wall facade, and the glittering serpent of the 1993 Waterloo International terminal in London, for Eurostar trains. Both were enthusiastically received buildings that transcended the irritating style wars of the previous decade. And both, please note, were "official", state-backed projects, sending out a progressive design message years before this became fashionable again.