Publication Account

Date 1997

Event ID 1019420

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1019420

When RMJM began their pioneering greenfield-site university development at Stirling, they (and other designers) were already deeply involved with this, Scotland's most architecturally ambitious university scheme involving redevelopment of existing urban fabric. The individual redevelopment along the south and east sides of George Square included setpieces by Reiach, RMJM and Spence. The stone-clad projects by the latter two firms - especially the cantilevered George Square Theatre - conformed to the 1960s predilection for more massively articulated forms; the eight-storey library was planned with central service core and elevations dominated by the bold horizontals of Portland stone-faced balconies. This redevelopment scheme, which replaced the pleasant but unexciting 18th-century classicism of George Square with a richer and more variegated architectural ensemble, including multi-storey blocks (first proposed in Basil Spence's plan of 1955), was later incorporated in a much more ambitious strategy by Percy Johnson-Marshall for a decked, multi-level redevelopment of the entie University precinct, stretching to the Pleasance. While the horizontality and slightly megastructural character of the RMJM Faculty buildings echoed this theme, the wider scheme, like most of Percy Johnson-Marshall's visionary projects, remained unrealised. (Fig. 4.30, 4.31, 4.32, 4.33, 4.34).

Information from 'Rebuilding Scotland: The Postwar Vision, 1945-75', (1997).