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Reflexions of Venice in Scottish Architecture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Before the impact of Ruskin’s Stones of Venice in the middle of the nineteenth century, Venetian architecture was far less important for Scotland than, say, France, the Netherlands, England or even Greece. Indeed, the lack of interest can be as striking as the influence itself, given the intriguing consonances between the two cultures. After the mid-nineteenth century, Venetiań allusions multiplied, but they were mediated in the process of translation, to acquire new associations and meanings.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001
References
Notes
1 This title gives me the excuse to bridge my two principal research interests, while at the same time paying tribute to the immeasurable contribution of John Newman to architectural history in this country. The text is a shortened version of the Annual St Andrew Architecture Lecture given on 28 September 1999, hosted by the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and co-sponsored by the Department of Art History, University of St Andrews.
2 Vitruvius, , Ten Books on Architecture, ed. Rowland, Ingrid and Howe, Thomas Noble, transl. Rowland, I. (New York, London & Melbourne, 1999), p. 76 Google Scholar (Book VI, chap. I, p. 2).
3 For example, Stevenson, Robert Louis, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (Edinburgh, 1983), p. 10 Google Scholar; Brown, Horatio F., Life on the Lagoons (London, 1884)Google Scholar; Jerdan, William (ed.), Letters from James [Drummond] Earl of Perth (London, 1845)Google Scholar; MDMoore, John, View of Society and Manners in Italy, 2 vols (London, 1781)Google Scholar.
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20 I am grateful to John Lowrey for drawing my attention to this document. Howard, ‘Sir William Bruce’s Designs’, p. 61.
21 On the Earl of Mar see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 47–50, and articles cited therein. For William Adam see ibid., pp. 62–66; Gifford, John, William Adam 1689-1748 (Edinburgh, 1989)Google Scholar; Howard, Deborah (ed.), William Adam (Architectural Heritage), 1 (1990)Google Scholar. John Douglas is still a somewhat shadowy figure: see Colvin, op. cit., pp. 319-20.
22 Alistair Rowan, ‘William Adam’s Library’, in Howard (ed.), William Adam, pp. 8-33 (pp. 24-25).
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25 Fleming, Robert Adam, p. 235.
26 Edinburgh University Library, Playfair drawings, Portfolio 5, nos 543-63 (559-60).
27 MrTrotter’s, , Modified Plan of Improvements upon the Earthen Mound &c (Edinburgh, 1834)Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Ian Gow for kindly drawing my attention to this scheme.
28 Ruskin, John, Lectures on Architecture and Painting delivered at Edinburgh in November, 1853 (London, 1854), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar.
29 Ruskin, Lectures, p. 7.
30 Gow, Ian, ‘David Rhind 1808-83’, in Brown, Roderick (ed.), The Architectural Outsiders (London, 1985), pp. 53–171 Google Scholar (pp-163-65).
31 Allan, Douglas et al, Royal Scottish Museum: Art and Ethnography, Natural History, Technology, Geology (Edinburgh, 1954), pp. 7–9 Google Scholar. The eastern halfwas opened in 1866, and the whole complex in 1875. See the plans on p. 54.
32 McKinstry, Sam, Rowand Anderson: ‘the Premier Architect of Scotland’ (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 68–75, 133-35Google Scholar.
33 This link was pointed out to me by the late Giles Robertson. See the new English translation by Jocelyn Godwin: Colonna, Francesco, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The strife of love in a dream (London, 1999), p. 205 Google Scholar.
34 Stevenson, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, p. 13.
35 McKinstry, Rowand Anderson, pp. 110-12.
36 The name came from a café which took up residence in the 1920s. See Gomme, Andor & Walker, David, Architecture of Glasgow, revised edn (London, 1987), pp. 156–58Google Scholar; Williamson, Elizabeth, Riches, Anne and Higgs, Malcolm, The Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow (London, 1990), p. 226 Google Scholar. On the Ca’ d’Oro in Venice see Goy, Richard J., The House of Gold: Building a Palace in Medieval Venice (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.
37 Gomme & Walker, Architecture, p. 178; Williamson et al, Glasgow, p. 222. Andor Gomme points out that the Stock Exchange is indeed second-hand Venetian, being a close crib of a section of William Burges’s competition entry for the London Law Courts.
38 Ruskin, , Stones, 1 (1907 edn), p. 354 Google Scholar. The church is illustrated in action as a flour-mill in Clegg, Jeanne, Ruskin and Venice (London, 1981), pl. 5 Google Scholar.
39 Lutyens, Mary (ed.), Effe in Venice: Unpublished Letters of Mrs John Ruskin written from Venice between 1849-1852 (London, 1965), pp. 64–65, 76Google Scholar.