Architect: Enric Miralles
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Project Year: 1999-2004
Photographs: Dave Morris, Andrew Gainer, Wikimedia Commons
References: Caroline McCracken-Flesher, Charles Jencks
Widely known for it’s extreme cost of construction, the Scottish Parliament is a remarkable example of incorporating architecture into it’s surroundings.
“The Parliament sits in the land. We have the feeling that the building should be land, built out of land. To carve in the land the form of gathering people together… Scotland is a land… The land itself will be a material, a physical building material…”
Architect: Enric Miralles
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Project Year: 1999-2004
Photographs: Dave Morris, Andrew Gainer, Wikimedia Commons
References: Caroline McCracken-Flesher, Charles Jencks
Widely known for it’s extreme cost of construction, the Scottish Parliament is a remarkable example of incorporating architecture into it’s surroundings.
“The Parliament sits in the land. We have the feeling that the building should be land, built out of land. To carve in the land the form of gathering people together… Scotland is a land… The land itself will be a material, a physical building material…”
Officially projected to cost around $750 million dollars, this required each Scottish adult to contribute nearly $6 million to accommodate all 129 members of the Parliament. This is what set Enric Miralles’ design apart from his other competitors; the nature of his design and the cooperation needed from those impacted most by the space emphasized its democratic nature more than the others.
60 percent of the urban site is covered in vegetation, which is but one of the democratic references made throughout the building’s design. The “assembly area” marked by grassy banks and open to the public reveal these democratic intentions, as do the dark inglenooks found in every MSP’s office. Narrow, swinged corridors and staircases were included to encourage casual interactions and to increase the circulation and steady flow of the layout in the debating chaber.
The abstract nature of the forms found on the building are consistently stressed by the tour guides to be in the shape of “whatever you want them to be.” One of the more ubiquitous and characteristic shapes is featured on the facade to shade the windows; the freedom of deciphering what these symbols are or mean express an exercise in democracy.
By the public entrance, saltire crosses sit embedded in the concrete vaults. The stepped gables along the Royal Mile are turned upside-down, and grey granite was found in a Scottish quary and used in the building. The complex construction of the roof of the debating chamber is made of tensile teel wires and steel-reinforced oak beams. This space has one many major architectural awards, including the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2005.