Top architect urges capital to look closer to home for design talent

Published on Monday 30 August 2010 16:04

SCOTLAND'S capital is ignoring home-grown architects who are winning high-quality projects around the world and allowing the city to be dominated by "standard lumps" designed by the big practices, one of Edinburgh's best-known architects claims.

Writing in The Scotsman today, Malcolm Fraser highlights work done by architects such as Graham Massie who drew up the "best waterfront masterplan" he has ever seen - in Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.

"There are other Edinburgh practices doing inspirational work elsewhere, like Sutherland Hussey, recent winners of a masterplan for a new Chinese city of more than a million people," Mr Fraser said. "We need architects of such care and craft to raise our aims and aspirations in this, their own city, too, where they have been unable to win any work, instead of the business corporates that roll-out their standard lumps."

Neil Baxter, Secretary and Treasurer of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, backed Mr Fraser.

"Too many current public and private commissions throughout Scotland exclude immensely talented individuals in the mistaken belief that big is beautiful - we do so at our peril," he said.

Mr Fraser said Edinburgh had to build on the superb visions of the past that created the Old Town, New Town and the civic and commercial centres that gave the city its unique character.

He would not be drawn on specific "standard lumps" but said modern Edinburgh had been built on "bankers' urbanism" and added: "Bankers' urbanism does not quite stand-up, as an architectural vision, to these of our past; and the dense "doughnut blocks" (fat to the edge, empty in the middle) of RMJM's Leith Docks masterplan … fail to produce environments fit for how we live in our Edinburgh today."

Mr Fraser said architects had to put "joy, inspiration and surprise" back into their work and some of the young architects he praised backed his views.

Mr Massie said he thought there was perhaps a "conservatism and a risk aversion" in Edinburgh that meant younger practices didn't get major commissions.

Cllr Jim Lowrie, planning convener for the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "Most architects employed in Edinburgh are appointed by the private sector, and not the local authority, although we always encourage local firms to pitch for new business in the city - but Edinburgh boasts a large number of high profile and award-winning schemes, most recently the Missoni Hotel, designed by local architects."

Best practices

Graham Massie Architects is working on three projects in Iceland. One, on the harbour at Reykjavik, is what Malcolm Fraser describes as "the best waterfront masterplan (I know]"

The practice, based in Edinburgh's New Town, was named as one of the top ten emerging practices worldwide by design magazine Wallpaper.

•Sutherland Hussey's project in south-west China involves a masterplan for a satellite city for the main Chengdu urban area.

The Leith-based firm's directors Charlie Sutherland, left, and Charlie Hussey both worked for the late Sir James Stirling, while fellow director Colin Harris has worked for Zaha Hadid in London.