9-10 St Andrew Square, Built 1962

Category

Library Item

Item no

42026

Title

9 and 10 St Andrew Square, built 1962, architect, Basil Spence and Partners

Artist / maker

MacLean, Kevin

Date

2016

Type

Digital image

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

6-storey and set back attic T-plan on square base office block. Polished black granite plinth at ground, surmounted by thin glazed clerestory strip; upper floors clad in pale Derbydene marble.

The Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society acquired the relatively new premises of the Western Bank of Scotland at 9 St Andrew Square in 1859, and expanded into Nos 10 and 11 in the early 1930s. By 1956 they decided that they needed more accommodation and called in Basil Spence to design a new building for the site. This new head office was built to harmonise with its neighbour the Guardian Royal Exchange, and is an understated but very sophisticated classical design in all respects. Only the finest materials were used (even on rear elevations), and the finishing throughout, internally and externally, is excellent. The principal entrance is a particularly successful piece of theatre, mirroring the treatment of 42 St Andrew Square which it faces, and the interior has survived much as Spence left it.

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9-10 St Andrew Square, built 1962