Basil Spence, Edinburgh, Scottish Building, Architect, Flats, Images, Design, Info

Basil Spence Housing, Edinburgh : Architecture

Sir Basil Spence Glover & Ferguson : Housing, Canongate, Edinburgh

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Canongate Housing

79-121 Canongate, Edinburgh, Scotland
Date built: 1966-68
Design: Sir Basil Spence, Glover & Ferguson, architects

image © Adrian Welch

Private Housing

Scottish vernacular meets modernism: flats in white-grey render, concrete, ‘rubble’ and dressed stone with restrained elements reminiscent of Mackintosh, though concrete ageing badly. Leitmotif is the shallow concrete vaulting hinting at Le Corbusier’s later buildings.

The buildings have shallow sloping roofs running east-west thus the facades could read as hugely wide gable ends, unlike anything else on the Royal Mile and – apart from ground level punctuation – not exactly contextual.

The blocks part at the Canongate Manse which is marooned but beautifully set back from the street like the Canongate Kirk a little further up the Royal Mile Edinburgh.

Basil Spence

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Edinburgh Old Town Architecture Tour

Edinburgh Old Town Housing – Selection:

Old Town Canongate Housing

photograph © Adrian Welch