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249-263 Canongate and 43 New Street, Morocco Land
MacLean, Kevin, 2016, Digital image
249-263 Canongate and 43 New Street, Morocco Land
249-263 Canongate and 43 New Street, Morocco Land
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Item no
42044
Title
249-263 Canongate and 43 New Street, Morocco Land redevelopment, built 1957, architect Robert Hurd
Artist / maker
MacLean, Kevin
Date
2016
Type
Digital image
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
The Morocco Land redevelopment of the late 1950s consists of five adjoining but distinct blocks of 4-storey tenements in a modern Scots vernacular style. Built to replace slum tenements, the Morocco Land redevelopment reflects Scottish tenemental architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries. The project received a Civic Trust Award in 1960. Hurd's philosophy in redeveloping swathes of the Canongate was to re-introduce a resident population to the Old Town drawing from all social groups. Architecturally, this version of national modernism re-interpreted the Scots vernacular acknowledging traditional materials and forms.
Morocco Land is said to derive its name from the legend of Andrew Gray, an ancestor of the Earl of Moray, who, having escaped execution for rioting, fled to Morocco where he made his fortune. On his return, he heard that his cousin, daughter of the Lord Provost of the time, had caught the plague. He cured her and they later married and continued to live in her home in the Canongate. The figure of a turbaned Moor which projected from a recess over the second floor of the building is attributed to this time and associated with the plague epidemic, although it may have been a tradesman's sign.
In the 1930s, examination was made of the properties in the Canongate by officials from Edinburgh Corporation and many were assessed as being no longer fit for habitation. By 1937, the buildings were derelict and plans were made to preserve them, but by 1940 work had not begun on reconstruction. In March 1947, it was necessary to demolish part of Morocco Land when the empty tenement began to collapse and in 1952 the architect Robert Hurd outlined his plans for the redevelopment of the second section of the Canongate to include Morocco Land. By 1958 Morocco Land had been rebuilt with shops on the ground floor and modern flats above, with the figure of the Moor reinstated in its rightful place on the wall. An unusual wooden house-front was incorporated into the facade of the building.
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Modern Architecture in Edinburgh
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