Scottish Widows St Andrew Square, Edinburgh city property photo, Basil Spence architect design

St Andrew Square Modern Building : Architecture

New Town building design by Basil Spence, Edinburgh, Scotland

post updated 29 May 2023

23 January 2023

Building Fire News

Reports advise a fire near or at Edinburgh’s famous Jenners building.

It appears to be in the building designed by Basil Spence on St Andrew Square.

Scottish Widows St Andrew Square

St Andrew Square Retail / Commercial property by Basil Spence architect

building photo © Adrian Welch, Sep 2006, with a lumix camera

Date built: 1962
Architects: Spence Glover Ferguson

Address: 9 St Andrew Square

Scottish Widows Building, St Andrew Square (sw corner)

building photo © Adrian Welch 2005

Basil Spence architect

Sir Basil Urwin Spence, OM OBE RA (1907 – 1976) was a Scottish architect. His career was most noted for his design of Coventry Cathedral in England, and the Beehive in New Zealand. However he was also responsible for numerous other 20th Century buildings in the Modernist and Brutalist styles.

After graduating in 1931, Kininmonth and Spence set up an architecture practice together, within the office of Rowand Anderson & Paul in Rutland Square, Edinburgh. The practice was founded on two residential commissions which Kininmonth had obtained that year.

In 1934 the Kininmonth & Spence practice merged with Rowand Anderson & Paul. After Balfour Paul’s death in 1938, this Scottish architects practice was renamed Rowand Anderson & Paul & Partners. Basil Spence’s work now focused on exhibition design, including three pavilions for the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Glasgow, and country houses.

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