Usher Hall, sketch design of electrical fitting

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

35558

Title

Usher Hall, sketch design of electrical fitting

Description

Inscribed bottom right: This is one of the drawings referred to in Contract between the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council of the City of Edinburgh and Messrs J.W. Singer and Sons Ltd. Frome, Somerset, Edgar R. Singer, W. Herbert Singer, Frederick Coakes (?).

Artist / maker

Unknown

Date

1912

Type

Gouache on paper; Pencil work

Location

City Art Centre

In 1896 Andrew Usher gifted £100,000 to the City of Edinburgh to provide a City Hall to be used for concerts and recitals. In 1910 architects were invited to design a hall to the cost of £65,000. 133 designs were considered and all were exhibited in the hall of the New Corn Market in Gorgie. The designs were voted on anonymously on 22nd July 1910. A joint entry from Stockdale Harrison & Sons and Howard H. Thomson of Leicester was successful.

One hundred years later, a firm of architects in Leicester contacted the Usher Hall to say that they could trace their origins to Stockdale Harrison & Sons and had in their archive a folder of original drawings relating to the building.

The archive was purchased by Edinburgh Museums and Galleries in 2014. It contains over 200 items including early sketches of the venue, watercolour impressions and detailed competition drawings. There are also exquisitely coloured drawings of lighting and sculptural designs, blueprints for heating layouts, ironmongery and terrazzo floors.

This drawing comes from the Stockdale Harrison & Sons collection.

Digital image created by Antonia Reeve Photography.

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Lights

Places > Edinburgh areas > Lothian Road

Places > Edinburgh Landmarks > Usher Hall

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Sport and leisure > Culture > Concert halls