Holyrood is 'without parallel' in 100 years of architecture

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Archiseek / UK / Scotland / News / 2005 / January 23

It may have been three years overdue and cost 11 times more than initially estimated but the Scottish parliament is a new modern icon, according to academic Charles Jencks. In a book to be published later this year, Jencks will argue that the perceived failings of the building project resul-ted in its success as “a tour de force of arts and crafts and quality without parallel in the last 100 years of British architecture”. He believes the selection of the relatively inexperienced architect Enric Miralles and appointment of the architecture firm RMJM midway through the process broke the competition rules, but married a visionary risk-taking element with an established practice. The designer of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's award-winning sculpture Landform said that parliament's construction cost of Ł431 million has bought Scotland a new breed of international icon: the “anti-icon icon”, a building that is very visibly not there.

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