Dalhousie Land, St John Street, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Description

Dalhousie Land is a post-war university building designed in the Festival Style by Esme Gordon and Gordon Dey in 1960-63 with later internal alterations in 1996 by Dodd Jamieson and Partners and further internal alterations in 1999 and 2008. It is a 4-storey and basement, 8-bay rectangular-plan education building with a flat-roofed, 2-storey and 7-bay ancillary section along the east elevation set on pilotis. It is located to one side of a quadrant of multi-phase college campus buildings for Moray House and is joined to an earlier building to its north end with a single recessed bay in traditional stone style and massing which houses a staircase.

The building is constructed of coursed rubble stonework at the ground floor and south gable end; there is smooth rendering elsewhere. The central gable panel and pilotis section is coloured vert-de-gris green. There is a coloured Moray Family shield crest to the gable apex. The external window pattern reflects the varying internal levels to the building: the stepped pattern to the windows at the gable end light the main staircase; the square single windows are closely set to create a horizontal pattern within the large expanse of wall; the second floor housed the former lecture theatre. The small window openings are designed with deep set projecting strip margins.

The building has replacement window frames dating to 1996 and later entrance doors and canopy dating to 2008. The pitched roof of the main block is slated with overhanging eaves. There is a later entrance ramp to the front door.

The interior of the building was seen in 2015 and it has undergone alterations to the plan form and detailing. A former swimming pool to the ground floor and lecture theatre above were remodelled in 1996 when the building was converted from lecture and sporting facilities to provide library and office accommodation. The raked floor of the former lecture theatre is still evident in the main library space; there is also a central sunken floor section which was the former swimming pool.

Statement of Interest

Dalhousie Land was built during the post-war expansion of university and higher education provision and is a notable example of its building type. Its design was influenced by the Festival of Britain style as well as modern Scandinavian design and is one of a relatively small number of public buildings designed in this style in Scotland. While its interior has been altered, its exterior is largely intact.

Dalhousie Land is one of a group of buildings in a densely built up area of Edinburgh that formed the former Moray House College (now part of the University of Edinburgh). The buildings are of varying dates and architectural styles and together form a coherent group demonstrating the development of the site for the provision of educational over the past 200 years. This multi-period collection of buildings is typical of higher education buildings in an urban campus setting and Dalhousie Land is prominently set within this group.

Dalhousie Land was designed in 1960 by the architect Esme Gordon, of Gordon and Dey, for the Moray House College of Further Education. It was opened on 2nd May 1963 by the Rev Neville Davidson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and built at a construction cost of £119,000. The building was built as an arts education facility for Moray House School of Education which was founded on this site in Edinburgh in 1848 for the purpose of teacher training. When first built, Dalhousie Land included a lecture theatre, art rooms and a swimming pool to the ground. It underwent substantial internal alterations by the architects Dodd Jamieson and Partners in 1996 when the building's use was changed to that of a library. Further alterations were then carried out in 1999 following the merger between Moray House and the University of Edinburgh with these works resulting in the loss of the lecture theatre to create more library and office accommodation. The building still forms part of a group of buildings providing teacher training (2015).

Tertiary or higher education in Scotland underwent a period of expansion in the post-war period particularly between 1957 and 1970 as seen in Edinburgh by the expansion in the University of Edinburgh campuses such as at George Square, The Kings Buildings and also at Moray House College. Significant change was led by the Robbins Report, a government paper by the Committee on Higher Education which was published in 1963 and which set the recommendations for expansion. Significant university building programmes were however already underway in the 1950s with Dundee and Edinburgh being the earliest in Scotland to undertake extensive building programmes. Dalhousie Land was built during this period of development. Its form is also representative of a specific period when there was a shift towards building design reflecting new philosophies in teaching, a movement which had begun in earnest from the 1930s onwards. In the post-war period, both independent schools and universities had identified the importance of design-led architectural provision and often appointed recognised high profile contemporary architectural practices to produce campus masterplans and high quality purpose-built buildings. Dalhousie Land is an example of one of these buildings and is a good example of architecture inspired by the Festival of Britain as well as contemporary interest in Scandinavian modernism (see Architectural or Historic Interest Below).

The external form of Dalhousie Land is largely unaltered externally apart from minor changes to the entrance and the window materials a small ground floor infill addition under the pilotis. The building has an unusual irregular pattern of external glazing which is typical for Festival Style buildings of the period, however the pattern is also of interest in listing terms as it clearly demonstrated the internal planning of the building when built. There are irregular floor heights to the swimming pool and lecture theatre and off-set floor levels to the gable marking the stair half landings. The building has a good external elevational composition reflecting the interest in Festival of Britain and Scandinavian modern style which is similar to the near-contemporary buildings at Pollock Halls built in 1959.

The Dalhousie Land building appears to have taken inspiration from a number of contemporary tertiary education buildings in Scotland: Gordon's Dalhousie Land is contemporary with and in similar design to significant buildings by Basil Spence in Glasgow and Walter Ramsay at the University of Edinburgh which were also influenced Scandinavian modern and mid-century design.

The architectural practice of Esme Gordon (1910-1993) and Gordon Dey (1911-1997) began in 1946 when Gordon, who was already a sole practitioner, took Dey on as a partner. After his training at Edinburgh College of Art Gordon's early career was with Burnet, Tait and Lorne and he worked on St Andrew's House, Edinburgh and the 1938 Empire Exhibition. The practice mainly concentrated on Eventide Homes and small church commissions in the earlier years with a definite shift moving towards education and college buildings from the 1950s with several commissions for Heriot Watt as well as those commissions for Moray House. Esme Gordon is acknowledged as a leading architect in mid-20th century Edinburgh.

The architectural practice Gordon and Dey had a longstanding relationship with Moray House having designed a number of buildings in the college's estate as well as being involved in alteration schemes to existing buildings over a 28-year period. The first building the practice designed for the College was the Sports Pavilion (1952), followed by the Speech Therapy Department (1954), Gymnasium (1968-70), Charteris Land (1971) and St Mary's Land and Chessel's Land (1980).

External Links

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