From the outset, the Scottish Parliament building and its
construction were controversial. Begun in 1999 with completion planned for
2001, it actually opened in 2004, £400 million over-budget. The design won
numerous awards including the 2005 Stirling Prize, and, according to Wikipedia,
has been described as a tour de force of Arts & Crafts design and quality
‘without parallel.’ It also placed fourth in a 2008 poll on what UK
buildings people would most like to see demolished.
I think the driver on the tour bus Keara and I were on in 2007
might have been one of the folks who placed this building so high in the
demolition rankings the following year. We drove by so fast that, by the time
he even mentioned what it was, we'd missed most of it.
On to Glasgow, where I had been looking forward to showing Keara
the Gallery of Modern Art. It’s housed
in the iconic former Stock Exchange building, the columns and façade of which had been
undergoing a major cleaning the last time I was in Glasgow. It was a little
disappointing to find that the cleaning had apparently gone so well that they
decided to wrap the elegant Corinthian capitals snugly in layers of black
netting to keep them clean and pigeon-free.
