View from the Scottish Parliament

This morning I had a meeting at the Scottish Parliament with Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs. The meeting was in connection with the Mackintosh Society and the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

This is a view from the meeting room looking out towards Calton Hill.

Opened in October 2004, the Scottish Parliament Building was designed by Enric Miralles, the renowned Catalan architect.

Born in 1955, Enric Miralles Moya studied architecture in Barcelona and received a doctoral degree from Columbia University. With his first wife, he set up an architectural practice in Barcelona in 1984, and he went on to win architectural competitions throughout Europe. He was influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Le Corbusier and Antonio Gaudi.

Enric Miralles always spoke about the Parliament “sitting in the land”, and a landscape scheme has been laid out around the building as part of the overall project. To realise this conceptual idea, many of the structures have been turfed and “concrete branches”, covered in grass, flow from the site, connecting the leaf-shaped buildings with the adjacent parkland.

Curling tonight and we won 12-1.