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The work of a Czech architect driven from the streets of Prague by Russian tanks a generation ago and the Cornish-based Dutch boat-builder who turned his design into reality was unveiled at Lord's yesterday to an appreciative audience of journalists and officials.

The new NatWest Media Centre, a giant glass and aluminium eye hovering 50 feet above the grass between the Compton and Edrich Stands, and looking straight over the square to the old pavilion opposite, is a far cry from the ill-placed tent from which a small group of cricket writers once reported the major matches.

Whatever the view of the aesthetic quality of the first single-shell aluminium building constructed, it is a vast improvement as a press facility on anything that has gone before at the game's headquarters and it is equalled for size, view and quality only by the impressive new Radcliffe Road Centre at Nottingham.

There is a nautical feel to this spectacular building, which is appropriate. When the MCC committee selected the futuristic design by Jan Kaplicky, of Future Systems, the Pendennis shipyard in Falmouth was asked to create the structure.

It was prefabricated in 26 pieces, transported on lorries and lifted into place by cranes. The completed capsule, which cost 5.8 million pound sterling, spans 42 metres and contains 26 km of computer and television cable, plus 500 outlets for telephones and computers. That should be just about enough for the demands of the World Cup final on June 20.

Tony Lewis, president of MCC, said as he launched the 'ship' with champagne: ``As a journalist and broadcaster, I am thrilled by the facilities and vision of the new NatWest Media Centre. In this project, MCC proves that it embraces innovative ideas and images.''

This is the fourth major new building to be opened at Lord's in four years. Together with the grandstand, the indoor school and the new nursery pavilion, it completes an extraordinary series of architecturally adventurous structures.

It says much for the quality of the old pavilion itself that it has lost none of its original majesty and seems to look at all this modernity with approving eyes.