Parliamentary News Release

054/2003

Wednesday 17 September 2003

PRESIDING OFFICER TO OPEN ARCHITECTURAL EXHIBITION IN BARCELONA

As part of this week’s ‘Scotland with Catalunya’ events, the Presiding Officer George Reid and the Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace will officially open the ‘Landforms’ architectural exhibition this Friday in Barcelona.

These range in scale from the Museum of Scotland to affordable rural housing in Skye. Both the Enric Miralles-designed Holyrood Parliament building and Sutherland Hussey's "An Turas", recently short-listed for the prestigious Stirling Prize for Architecture are also featured.

The Landforms exhibition illustrates the varied ways in which buildings can draw on the landscape in which they sit. Enric Miralles, for example, saw Holyrood as sitting in the land, not dominating it.

With this in mind, his initial competition submissions drew particular attention to the cultural significance of the land to Scottish civic life, and to the extent to which Scottish architecture is itself characterised by its relationship to geology and climate.

Speaking ahead of leaving for Barcelona today, the Presiding Officer, George Reid MSP, said:

“In Miralles, we have a man whose inspirations were drawn from both nations. The influences of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Antoni Gaudi are clearly visible in his work.

“The relationship between devolved Scotland and devolved Catalunya are strong in so many ways. The choice of an Catalan architect for Scotland’s new Parliament building is simply the most obvious illustration of this.”

Background

News release details of the Parliamentary delegation visiting ‘Scotland with Catalunya’ are available on the Scottish Parliament’s website.

For further information about the Landforms exhibition, the media contact is:

Lesley Booth: 0779 941 4474

For further information the media contact is:

James Mackenzie: 0131 348 5605
email: james.mackenzie@scottish.parliament.uk
Out of hours: 07699 717177

For public information enquiries, contact: 0131 34 85000

For general enquiries, contact: 0845 278 1999 (local call rate)
email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk
Visit our website at: www.scottish.parliament.uk