Tag Archives: Scotland

special collections

Sketch Book

Edinburgh Architectural Association. Sketch Book. Edinburgh: George Waterston & Sons, [1876-1894].

Volume Three (1880-1882) consists of a series of architectural drawings of historical buildings from across Scotland. There is no accompanying text or explanations regarding the architectural works, unless it was included as part of the drawing themselves. The Sketch Book is interesting not simply as a record of historical structures but also because we can see different approaches to drawing & documenting these works.

library, special collections

Scottish Architecture

Charles Jencks. The Scottish Parliament. London: Scala, 2005. Christopher Hussey. The Work of Sir Robert Lorimer, K.B.E., R.S.A. London: Country Life Limited, 1931.  Peter Savage. Lorimer and the Edinburgh Craft Designers.  Edinburgh: Paul Harris Publishing, 1980.

I do not pretend to know enough about modern politics in the UK to have an opinion about the vote today in Scotland. I can though chat forever about 12th century politics and its effect on the architecture and landscapes of David I. However it should go, today’s post is for Scotland.

Of the modern Scottish architects, my heart belongs to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his Glaswegian cohort. Having written previously about Mackintosh, I thought I would introduce two favorite places in Edinburgh: The Thistle Chapel by Sir Robert Lorimer and The Scottish Parliament by Enric Miralles.

I discovered Sir Robert Lorimer not in Scotland but rather in a class on the Arts and Crafts Movement. Charles Hussey writes of the chapel and Lorimer:

It is a remarkable, and was at the time a unique, example of a true revival of the medieval crafts- traditional yet spontaneous; instinct with the Gothic spirit yet unaffected and of its own age. Its triumphant success was owing primarily to Lorimer’s approach to architecture being essentially that of the medieval craftsman-architect… But that would not have sufficed had he not been in the fullest sense of the term an artist. (pg. 80)

Chapel

While my studies had prepared me to anticipate what I would see in the chapel, I was overwhelmed by the space. I remember transitioning from the darkened cathedral to the brilliantly carved and light-filled chapel.

Unlike The Thistle Chapel, I actually knew nothing of The Scottish Parliament. I happened upon it on my trip to Holyrood Palace to see Holyrood Abbey, a David I foundation. I was surprised by the building as I walked along Canongate, a striking contrast to the street and Holyrood; however, it is nestled rather well into the landscape. I had no idea what would be in store when I decided to take the tour of the building. I remember feeling surprised at every turn. And I enjoyed walking the exterior whenever I happened to be nearby; there was always a new discovery to make.

Parliment

Parliment

special collections

Modern British Domestic Architecture and Decoration

Charles Holme, ed. Modern British Domestic Architecture and Decoration. London: Offices of the Studio, 1901.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Charles Holme issued a call for a new architecture for the homes of Britain. He collected a series of essays on architecture, furniture, metal-work, stained glass, and decoration & embroidery. The treatise is highly illustrated with works by the Mackintoshes, the McNairs, and M. H. Baillie Scott- leaders in the Scottish Arts & Crafts Movement- among other architects and designers.

Edward S. Prior (1855-1932), architect & writer, wrote the essay  on domestic architecture, “Upon House-Building in the Twentieth Century,” for the publication, which was influenced by theories of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Like Holme, he issued a challenge to the architects of the twentieth century to abandon the adoration of the three great gods, Science, Commerce and Nature of the nineteenth century (pg. 10). He argues that through Science and Archaeology, architects reproduced the works of the past, latching onto various styles.  Prior suggests: A better understanding of his worth [Science] to us would cause him to be appreciated as the science of construction, not as the knowledge of other people’s ornament (10-11). Commerce too  had a detrimental effect on architecture. Houses were designed with profit as the driving force, loosing all individuality. The bottom line, Prior argues, has also affected the quality of workmanship and material. He writes: We have to take not only what does not suit us, but what is not the real thing at all- fatty compounds for butter, glucose for sugar, chemicals for beer: and just as certainly the sham house for the real building, its style a counterfeit, its construction a salable make-believe, its carved wood a pressing from machinery, its panelling linoleum, its plaster some pulp or other, its metal work a composition, its painted glass only paper- everything charmingly commercial and charmingly cheap (11-12). Finally, Prior is critical of the nineteenth century’s relationship with Nature. He proclaims: And to add insult to injury, we not only lay waste Nature’s palaces, but we talk glibly enough of taking her into our gardens, and to this end we set out puny landscapes in place of wide ones so rashly destroyed (12).

Prior hopes that the architects will reflect upon their relationship with the nineteenth century’s gods and overcome the challenges that such worship has imposed upon them. He concludes: And architects, delivered from the thralldom of design and required to provide neither orders nor styles, neither nooks nor symmetries, might be allowed the money for building with brains: that is to say, for a progressive experimental use of what science and commerce bring their hands, a controlling grasp of the new practices of construction, for the purposes not of champ construction but of good building. Thus alone may we cease to be purveyors of style. And when, at last, we shall have ceased to be artistic, perhaps we may grow, unselfconsciously, into artists (14).

special collections

Deanston House, The Seat of James Smith Esquire

Edward W. Trendall. Original Designs for Cottages and Villas in the Grecian, Gothic and Italian Styles of Architecture. London: Published by the Author, to be had by J. Carpenter & Son, 1831.

Edward Trendall published a series of original plans, elevations, and details as a pattern book in 1831. In his address to his reading public, he notes that “excellent works exist on the subject of Cottage and Village Architecture, yet one of more detailed and simple nature still appeared to be wanted…” Thus, he hoped to fill this niche. In addition to the designs, Trendall also calculated the cost of each house, assuming that the highest quality of materials were employed. Prices ranged from 350-3000 pounds; a cottage in the Greek style at the low end, while an Italian villa at the high.

While Trendall’s pattern book is straight forward, the edition held by Special Collections of the Architecture and Planning Library contains a bit of a mystery. The book was added to the collection in 1991, possibly as part of the Weinreb Architectural Collection. Bits of the book’s history have been collected between its unassuming covers that cause both delight and speculation regarding its journey.

On the inside cover, the book contains two book plates. The original is apparent beneath the second though unreadable. The second plate indicates that the pattern book was once housed by the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow. On the free endpaper, a note has been pasted, which references three titles, including this one, and a series of dates. A bookseller has penciled the asking price in the corner of this page as well. On the title page, John Fisher has inscribed his name. A search in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography did not prove fruitful for Mr. Fisher; nor did searching for an architect of this name in Scotland during the nineteenth century. Plates 20 and 28 were altered. An unknown hand sketched slightly different profiles for two of the roofs on Plate 20, while also labeling the six examples of exterior cornices on Plate 28. On the inside of the back cover, a plan of the first floor of a house has been sketched. The plan was labeled as the Deanston House, the Seat of James Smith Esquire 1831, though the date has been corrected. Beneath the label, a second name was placed: Muir. Esquire 1887. Searching for “James Smith of Deanston” in DNB proved more useful. According to Hugh Cheape, James Smith (1789–1850), a graduate from the University of Glasgow, was a “textile industrialist and agricultural engineer”. He made significant contributions to the Industrial Revolution and agriculture. Smith left Deanstson permanently in 1842 for London. It seems plausible that Smith would have commissioned a house in Deanton, though I could not readily identify one.

Hugh Cheape, ‘Smith, James, of Deanston (1789–1850)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25822, accessed 3 July 2014].