Canongate Housing
Sir Basil Spence, Glover & Ferguson
79-121 Canongate, Edinburgh, Scotland 1966-68
Private Housing
Scottish vernacular meets modernism: flats in white-grey render, concrete, 'rubble' and dressed stone with restrained elements reminiscent of Mackintosh, though concrete ageing badly. Leitmotif is the shallow concrete vaulting hinting at Le Corbusier's later buildings.
The buildings have shallow sloping roofs running east-west thus the facades could read as hugely wide gable ends, unlike anything else on the Royal Mile and - apart from ground level punctuation - not exactly contextual.
The blocks part at the Canongate Manse which is marooned but beautifully set back from the street like the Canongate Kirk a little further up the Royal Mile.
Edinburgh Restaurants
Edinburgh Old Town Architecture Tour
Edinburgh : back to index