Put your hand up if you think these panels are really fists

Published on Monday 12 May 2008 10:44

THEY have been compared to hairdryers, guns, question marks and even Scalextric controllers.

The oddly shaped panels on the outside of the Scottish Parliament have prompted much speculation, and have become a regular talking point on guided tours of the 414 million building.

But the latest claim is that the large panels, designed by parliament architect Enric Miralles, are actually clenched fists, intended to represent people power.

Angus Reid, a writer and film-maker, spells out his theory in the journal Scottish Affairs.

He writes: "It is remarkable that no-one has an explanation when the explanation is so obvious: they represent power, the power to change things and the power that comes, like sunlight, not from inside the building but from without.

"They are raised hands, and in that mass they resemble those forceful images of republicanism, a crowd of raised fists.

"The repetition of the fist motif amounts to a potent symbol of collective power."

He claims that Mr Miralles, who died before the building was complete, explicitly referred to the panels as "individuals" in a confidential report to the parliament.

Mr Reid also likens the layout of the building and its grounds to the shape of a right hand. "The ball of the thumb and the base of the palm correspond to the areas of open public access – the public foyer and the chamber.

"The other part of the hand – the fingers (the MSP office block], the thumb (the Canongate building] and the palm (the garden lobby and the towers] belong to the civil servants."

Mr Miralles' widow, Benedetta Tagliabue, has suggested the mysterious panels are like curtains at the windows. Others claim the shape was inspired by Sir Henry Raeburn's painting of the ice skating Reverend Robert Walker.

Officially known as "trigger panels", each slab took an entire week to install because the exercise involved five changes of scaffolding.

Professor Andy McMillan, former director of Glasgow's Mackintosh School of Architecture and a member of the panel which chose Mr Miralles, today dismissed the clenched fist theory.

He said: "I have always read them as people. I don't think it was ever meant to be a clenched fist. They are more like bodies.

"The clenched fist or raised fist doesn't ring a bell with me in Miralles' character."

Former Scottish Executive chief architect John Gibbons, who played a major role in the Holyrood building project, insisted Mr Miralles had no particular symbolism in mind when he drew the panels. He said: "He designed it as an abstract shape – it's one bit of the building that's not symbolic. I know for absolute certainty they are a geographic pattern.

"Part of the intrigue Enric enjoyed developing was getting people thinking and guessing.

"He would stir things up quite deliberately.

"He would be over the moon if he knew all of this discussion was still taking place."