Scottish Architecture (review)

The publication of Thames and Hudson's Scottish Architecture is a welcome (if rather overdue) assumption of Scottish architecture into the world of international art history. Typically for this series, the book's production values are good. It is compact, well designed, beautifully illustrated, and printed on good paper. Visual impact is a key feature, and the copious illustrations are generally excellent. For every photograph that is now dated (e.g. Fyvie), there is another of stunning quality (e.g. Falkland). If the colour of some nineteenth-century buildings, like the extraordinarily Egyptian interior of the St Vincent Street Church by Alexander Thomson, or the Venetian facade of Templeton's Carpet Factory, have, sadly, been rendered rather too pink, that is rare. The photo-graphs—particularly the older ones—of Scottish buildings have been selected with commendable discrimination.

Since this book will have an ambassadorial role beyond even that of the phenomenally successful History of Scottish Architecture, by the same authors with Ranald MacInnes, what messages does it convey about Scotland and its architecture? Essentially, it is one of astute and innovative architects, more than one might expect of a small country, making the best use of materials and technologies at hand in Scotland—and, when local work was short, abroad. The architectural consequences of the evolution from stone, to iron and then to steel is well described. The story covers 10,000 years, unequally divided between six chapters presenting, as it says in the introduction, the principal architectural trends within their wider social and cultural context. The first three cover from the prehistoric period to 1700, and the last three chapters are awarded a century each, following the authors' judgement that that reflects the trajectory of Scottish architecture. The nineteenth century is presented as Scottish architecture's 'high summer'. Ten years ago, we would not have had as much attention devoted either to the Renaissance period or to the late twentieth century, and these represent a welcome re-balancing. There is a ver y useful chap-ter-by-chapter summary bibliography.

The earlier chapters are structured around broad political or social themes, whereas the latter are more devoted to individual architects such as Robert Adam, William Playfair, Greek Thomson, Mackintosh, Basil Spence and Robert Matthew (in terms of design, the last one a surprise) presented as 'heroes'. There is a strong emphasis upon the internationalism of Scots archi-tects—whether those who simply worked abroad or those who emigrated 'given the small size of the country'. Thus there are illustrations of (inter alia)StSav-iour's Tower in the Kremlin, Wanstead House, St Martin's in the Fields, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, the British Museum and even of Dunedin, New Zealand. The contribution that these buildings made to Scottish architecture is not made entirely clear, other than that Scots were expansionist in outlook. The work of architects like William Playfair and Alexander Thomson who almost never ventured beyond the British Isles stands in intriguing contrast. They magnificently re-imagined ancient Greece and Rome for the 'modern Athenians' in Edinburgh and the United Presbyterians in Glasgow. Arguably, the latter had greater impact.

There is no better reconnaissance of Scottish architecture currently on the market than this somewhat breathless survey. To what degree, however, is it an architectural history?

Architectural histories are difficult, since there is an imperative to categorise and give order and discipline to an art that frequently rejects such attempts. Formerly, categorisation was undertaken according to 'style': but that was both a method and a word loathed by architects since it implied that the appearance of buildings was solely governed by fashion and thus equally interchangeable and evanescent. They believe that the appearance of a building should be sui generis: reflecting its purpose, client, location and the genius of the architect. This book eschews that 'evolution of style' approach (although 'style' intrudes—in the form of 'English Anglican-style', 'Dürer-style', 'Pantheon-style' (a reading room rotunda), a 'Glasgow-style City Improvement Trust', and even the...