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| Edinburgh
- Art Galleries
Click on photos to enlarge |
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Notes in italics from Pevsner Architectural
Guides,
Edinburgh by John Gifford, Colin McWilliam and David Walker (1991),
Yale University Press. |
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Scottish National Gallery of
Modern Art, Belford Road. Originally built as John Watson's School for
the fatherless children of the professional classes.
The front lawn was re-landscaped in 2002 to a design
by Charles Jencks. Called a Landform it consists of a stepped, serpentine
mound reflected in three crescent-shaped pools of water. More
about the Landform.
About the building: Greek Doric, long and grey in a half-rural setting,
by William Burn, 1825. ... Two stories on a basement with square windows
... hexastyle portico with middle bays recessed into the building. Then
five-bay links and three-bay pavilions, the whole united by a triglyph
entablature. ... |
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In the screen-bay end
elevations of the pavilions the outside bays repeat the pilastered
treatment of the front. Astylar centre with two tripartite windows on
ground-floor level. Severe rear elevation in rough coursed stonework, the
hall in the raised centre section. ... |
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Over the road, the Dean
Gallery. Originally the Dean Orphan Hospital. Characteristically
original work of Thomas Hamilton, 1831-3. English Baroque in concept but
Neo-Classical in detail, carried out with the utmost precision in
Craigleith stone. A single block of two storeys on a terrace with plain
walls and urns. Central steps between scrolls (like inverted consoles)
lead up to the tetrastyle Tuscan portico, the wide intercolumniation
emphasized by a massive attic in two stages, bearing a clock-face (the
clock salvaged from the demolition of the Netherbow Port) on scrolls. At
the ends tall pavilions with paired arches confined between the plain
corner pilasters. To the rear two strange openwork towers; glimpsed
previously over the trees, they may already have mystified the visitor.
They mark the twin staircases, for which their lowest stages provide
clearstorey light by arched windows. Scrolls and urns initiate the upper
stages; four tall octagonal chimney-shafts united by arches. The idea must
have come from Vanbrugh (e.g. Blenheim),
but the late Classical detail is closer to George Dance at Cole Orton and
Ashburnham. Other details typify Hamilton and his age, e.g. the
proportions of the windows and their glazing, with narrow panes bordering
the large ones, accentuating the sharpness of the whole building. ... |
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Royal
Scottish Academy, The Mound. Greek Doric by William H. Playfair,
1822-6 ... In 1831 Playfair was asked to enlarge it. He increased the
length to sixteen columns and considerably enriched the whole design,
enlarging the corner blocks with distyle porticos and sphinxes facing E
and W, and adding wreaths to the triglyph frieze and tendrilly carving to
the tympana of the main pediments (not visible).
The N pediment, which he advanced by another rank of columns, was crowned
in 1844 by the seated statue of Queen Victoria (her robes 'draped so as to
give a general idea of Britannia') by John Steell. ... (Andy
Warhol exhibition at the time of the picture). |
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National Gallery of Scotland, The
Mound, just to the south of the Royal Scottish Academy. Again designed by William H.
Playfair, but Ionic this time instead of Doric. Completed 1854. Southern end shown here. |
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Entrance hall of Scottish
National Portrait Gallery, Queen Street. Red sandstone columns, gilded
foliage capitals. Statues and busts of famous Scots, Robert Burns in
the centre of the picture. Over the arcade a frieze of celebrities from
Scottish history. The building dates from 1885-90 and is in the style of a
Venetian Gothic palace, more
here. |
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Website
for all the galleries |
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More
of Edinburgh at Astoft |
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