65-71 Canongate, Built 1969. Architect Basil Spence

Category

Library Item

Item no

42024

Title

65-71 Canongate, built 1969. Architect Basil Spence, Glover and Ferguson

Artist / maker

MacLean, Kevin

Date

2016

Type

Digital image

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

The 'Canongate flats' are a group of boldly designed residential and commercial blocks combining geometric forms with traditional references and materials, prominently situated on adjacent sites on the north side of the Canongate with a further block to Brown's Close. All three blocks are characterised by an informal arrangement of monopitch roofs, harled and rubble facings, a variety of horizontal and vertical windows, slightly projecting segmental-arched canopies to ground floors and cubic concrete balconies to the side and rear elevations.

Basil Spence's Canongate development is an important example of Scottish post-war housing occupying a critical and historically sensitive location on the Canongate. The three relatively externally unaltered blocks (comprising 30 dwellings with shops and a public house to ground floor) share the same unified themes, employed in a variety of ways to achieve a sense of rhythm and movement across the length of the site. The Canongate flats utilise contemporary Modernist approaches and are part contextual (attempting to harmonise with their older neighbours) and part confrontational.

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Related subjects

Architecture > Architectural features > Roofs

Architecture > Architectural features > Windows

Business > Service industry > Shops

Homes > Residential buildings > Flats

Places > Edinburgh areas > Canongate

Places > Scotland > Edinburgh

Transport > Infrastructure > Pedestrian crossings

Transport > Infrastructure > Roads

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