A Parliament like no other
Watercolour and crayon
©2016 Charlene Brown
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 a tour bus I was 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 missed most of it.
I got another chance to paint it, when the Virtual Paintout (where participants used Google Streetviews for reference) went to Edinburgh. I like the unique look of this building but couldn’t find a Google Streetview that gave any sort of idea of its overall appearance, so I settled for this glimpse of what I thought might be the front. (I realized later that if, instead of painting this Streetview, I’d rotated the camera to the right I would have gotten this rather better view and I’m guessing the flags are at the front door.)
