Question for the Scots

[MacHenderson]

The interior shots looked kinda cool, like someting out of a sci-fi. Of course, Scotland isn't the first thing I think of when I think of sci-fi...
The exterior looks aweful though. It looks like it was scrapped together from old, torn-down buildings. Sorry that you guys have to put up with this thing over there.

[McClef]

Final decisions on architecture for public building tend to be left to "the great and the good" with very little reference to those who have to pay for it and live with it.

Maybe we are luckier in Wales as one decision for the Millennium Centre in Cardiff brought about such an outcry that the "winning" design was actually dropped.

And the Senedd Building design is actually quite popular!

[prairieson]

Oh my, it looks like Frank Gehry took an acid trip, heheh.

[MacWage]

Oh my, it looks like Frank Gehry took an acid trip, heheh.

Again, it's DECONSTRUCTIONIST (as is Gehry).
I'm just don't think a deconstructionist design is the best for a seat of government, GREAT for an art museum, library, aquarium (Georgia Aquarium), stadium/arena, etc., JUST NOT A SEAT OF GOVERNMENT.

I'm not a native-country born Scot, so I'm backing out of this thread now.

[prairieson]

Again, it's DECONSTRUCTIONIST (as is Gehry).

Hence the Gehry comment.

...GREAT for an art museum, library, aquarium (Georgia Aquarium), stadium/arena, etc...

Most of the time, anyway. The museum I work at has a Gehry designed building on campus, it's affectionately referred to as "The Bunker" or my personal fave, "The Ugly Building"

Student: Where's this class at?
Me: The Center for Visual Arts.
Student: Where?
Me: The Ugly Building
Student: Ohhh! OK.

I completely agree with you about the appropriateness of it though... or maybe I'm just turning into a curmudgeonly old fart. Most probably the latter, heheh.

[Alan H]

I rather like all the wood inside, in that one shot of the parliament chamber. And actually I like the lobby.

The outside, though....*shudder*

[Pour1Malt]

sorry lads... but frae a purely design point o' view

it is a gorgeous building an a tremendous achievement...

the cost wuz ridiculous as others have mentioned...(it always is wi' govt. buildings)

but the architecture and design is terrific...



(noo... guess wha has a masters in design?... )

[Jaggy thistle]

nice inside but ugly outside and criminally expensive

[An t-Ileach]

It is hideous, and an appalling waste of money. I watched them building it, on an off, and thought all along that it was an eyesore and a piece of environmental pollution - it's located just across the way from Holyroodhouse Palace and the Salisbury Crags and spoils the view of both of them.

It's also hypocritical: there are bi-lingual signs all over the tourist bits, but once you pass through the doors into the members' and functionaries' area there is no Gaelic to be seen anywhere.

I never understood why the Royal High School wasn't used except for politicians cupidity and desire to waste some more of the taxpayers' money: even so a billion pounds is way over the top.

[Kid Cossack]

The overhead shots remind me of nothing so much as a haggis that's been cooked overlong in the oven. I do like the interior shots, but the exterior leaves me cold. I'm not averse to striking, or strikingly different, buildings, but this one doesn't blow any wind up my pleats at all.