The highly articulate and well-connected local protestors realize that they need to do more than draw up a roster of famous names to support their cause - which they have duly done, with everyone from Sir Terence Conran to Andrew Lloyd Webber supporting them, plus all the religious and ethnic groups in the district. They realize that it is not enough merely to moan: they need to present a viable alternative. In another era, this would have meant a folksy, Prince Charles-approved wholemeal pastiche of the kind developers laugh at. Not today. Alsop, last year’s Stirling Prize winner for his excellent Peckham Library, is no shrinking violet. His response - shown here for the first time - is to challenge the developers to build much more adventurously - and maybe even higher.

His idea may look outlandish, but it is very simple. There is no need to slice into the market hall, he reasons - and no need either to bury the fascinating archaeological excavations in the open space just behind it. All you need to do is jack the office blocks high up into the air on stilts, leaving clear open space beneath. That way, the developers get their floorspace, and the Spitalfields residents get to keep all of their market hall, plus a preserved and sheltered archaeological lower level that could lead into the building’s thus-far unexploited basement.

Alsop does colourful and provocative buildings, as you see. Not so long ago, he was seen as a maverick. But today, he is taken seriously. He works for several developers himself. He has built in many countries. He understands the language of commerce. He has also worked with several local communities on arts projects. If any architect can break the impasse in Spitalfields with a touch of lateral thinking, it is he. Signing him up is a very clever move by the protestors.