The Observer

It's a sunny afternoon in Little Sparta, Ian Hamilton Finlay's famous sculpture garden in the Borders, and a distant buzzing troubles the summer air. A dot on the horizon grows into a frail looking microlight, which swings down from the blue. The pilot is Richard Murphy, Scotland's best known architect, his round glasses mimicking his round head, giving the scene the whiff of a Terry Gilliam movie. Sometimes architecture and the visual arts come together in the oddest ways. Murphy has a big reputation. Speak to many of the sexier London architectural practises and his name is admired. Much of this is due to the praise of Scotland's greatest living architect, Isi Metzstein, but there are also the awards Murphy has won for his buildings, among them two of the leading spaces for contemporary art in the country. This year, he was the first Scottish architect invited to exhibit in the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.