The Scotsman

Enric Miralles, the Spanish architect, was causing so many problems when he started work on the Scottish Parliament building that he was almost fired just months after he was awarded the contract, it emerged yesterday. Bill Armstrong, the project manager, discussed the possibility of terminating Mr Miralles's contract with John Gibbons, the Scottish Office's chief architect, just a couple of months after the Spaniard had been chosen as the designer of the Holyrood project. Mr Armstrong said Mr Miralles had ignored his instructions, failed to come up with completed plans and had bypassed civil servants to go directly to the then Scottish secretary, Donald Dewar.