Tag Archives: Scotland

Rural life faces grim reaper

Posted on September 13, 2022 by David Brussat

The shadow darkening over pastures and woodlands, farm villages and hamlets probably threatens the rural style of life more in Britain than in America, where only a remnant of family farms, dairy or crops, survives in New England and the … Continue reading →

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Update on Mack restoration

Posted on November 12, 2021 by David Brussat

With bigwigs and celebs jetting away at last from Scotland’s global climate summit, what else is afoot in the city of Glasgow? The famous 1909 Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh has not been rebuilt after its near … Continue reading →

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“Conundrum of architecture”

Posted on November 4, 2021 by David Brussat

Below is a long guest post written by Scottish architecture critic David Black, who lives in Edinburgh. Written in light of controversies in the United States over former President Trump’s effort to align the styles of federal architecture with American … Continue reading →

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Don’t trifle with this building

Posted on January 22, 2021 by David Brussat

Opened in 1823 to a design by Thomas Hamilton, Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School has a stern and foreboding look. But surely a grin can be detected among its colonnades: It has recently dodged the bullet of redevelopment as an … Continue reading →

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Bulldoze or rebuild Mack?

Posted on June 22, 2018 by David Brussat

A horrific second fire in four years at Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, completed in 1909, has elicited predictably cockamamie calls to demolish rather than to again rebuild the Scotsman’s masterpiece. Its restoration had been 80 percent complete … Continue reading →

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Devastation in Glasgow

Posted on June 19, 2018 by David Brussat

Shattering news from Scotland, where architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece, the Glasgow School of Art, completed in 1909, has just suffered a catastrophic fire, just as its restoration after a catastrophic fire in 2014 was nearing its final stages. No! … Continue reading →

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Q. of Scots takes Edinburgh

Posted on January 17, 2018 by David Brussat

Here is Margaret, Queen of Scots, entering Edinburgh in 1503, riding with new husband James of Scotland, as seen through the lens of historical novelist Philippa Gregory in her Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016): The day of our entry into … Continue reading →

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Bobby Burns’ Edinburgh

Posted on January 28, 2017 by David Brussat

Aside from a quick nip past Scotland’s poor modernist parliament building, this video of Edinburgh focuses on the delights of the architecture of the Athens of the North. The narrator’s gentle brogue lifts the heart, even becomes a sort of … Continue reading →

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Macintosh library reveals all

Posted on June 7, 2016 by David Brussat

Today is Charles Rennie Macintosh’s birthday, the 148th anniversary of his birth in 1868. Hats off to Joel Pidel and Paul Ranogajec for memorializing the event with the picture above. Paul also linked to an article in Archinect, “The architects … Continue reading →

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Save Peter Pan’s birthplace

Posted on April 7, 2016 by David Brussat

Moat Brae survives. Moat Brae is the 1823 house and garden in Dumfries, Scotland, where J.M. Barrie, age 8 in 1868 and playing at pirates, conceived Neverland, the land of eternal childhood. That’s the good news. Moat Brae lives – … Continue reading →

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