The Royal Scottish Academy building, the home of the

Royal Scottish Academy The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is the country's national academy of art. It promotes contemporary art, contemporary Scottish art. The Academy was founded in 1826 by eleven artists meeting in Edinburgh. Originally named the Scottish Academy ...

, is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland. It is situated at the junction of The Mound and

Princes Street Princes Street () is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland and the main shopping street in the capital. It is the southernmost street of Edinburgh's New Town, Edinburgh, New Town, stretching around 1.2 km (three quar ...

in the centre of the city. It was built by

William Henry Playfair William Henry Playfair Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE (15 July 1790 – 19 March 1857) was a prominent Scottish architect in the 19th century who designed the Eastern, or Third, New Town, Edinburgh, New Town and many of Edinb ...

in 1822–6. Along with the adjacent

National Gallery of Scotland The National (formerly the Scottish National Gallery) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Playfa ...

, their neo-classical design helped to transform Edinburgh into the cityscape known as "the Athens of the North". Today the structure is a

Category A listed building Category, plural categories, may refer to: General uses *Classification, the general act of allocating things to classes/categories Philosophy * Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) * Category (Kant) * Categories (Peirce) *Category (V ...

History

Alexander Nasmyth - Princes Street with the Commencement of the Building of the Royal Institution - Google Art Project

The building was originally proposed by the Scottish Board of Manufactures and Fisheries in 1821 to provide shared accommodation for three separate cultural organisations: the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

, the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts and a museum of the

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is the senior antiquarian body of Scotland, with its headquarters in the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. The Society's aim is to promote the cultural heritage of Scotland. The usu ...

. The building was known as the ''Royal Institution'' from 1826 to 1911. The Royal Institution building was designed by the noted Scottish architect

and built in 1822–6. According to the antiquary James Grant, 2000 piles were driven into the ground to stabilise the foundations on the site above the

Nor Loch The Nor Loch, also known as the Nor' Loch and the North Loch, was a man-made loch formerly in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the area now occupied by Princes Street Gardens and Edinburgh Waverley railway station, Waverley station which lie between t ...

. The construction works are depicted in an 1825 painting by

Alexander Nasmyth Alexander Nasmyth (9 September 175810 April 1840) was a Scottish portrait and Landscape art, landscape Painting, painter, a pupil of Allan Ramsay (artist), Allan Ramsay. He also undertook several architectural commissions. Biography Nasmyth ...

, in which Playfair can be seen supervising the erection of the fluted Doric columns. In 1826, a group of artists broke away from the Royal Institution after disagreements over its policies, taking the name of the ''Scottish Academy''. From 1835, the group leased gallery space in the Royal Institution building to mount exhibitions of its growing art collection, and in 1838 the group received a royal charter and became the ''Royal Scottish Academy'' (RSA). One of its key aims was to found a national art gallery for Scotland, and this was realised in 1859, when a new gallery building was built by Playfair, the

, adjacent to the RI building. The building housed RI's collection of Old Master paintings along with the RSA collection. In 1831–6, the Board of Manufactures and Fisheries extended the Royal Institution. At the end of the 19th century, the Society of Antiquaries relocated its museum to new premises on Queen Street (the building that now houses the Scottish National Portrait Gallery), while the Royal Society moved to 22-24 George Street, and in 1907, the Royal Institution moved to the new

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

. In 1911, the RSA, which had been sharing space in the National Gallery building since 1859, was granted permanent tenancy of the old RI building and the right to hold its annual exhibition there. The building became known as the ''Royal Scottish Academy'', a name it retains to this day. The former RI building was remodelled in 1911–12 by William Thomas Oldrieve, with the addition of new galleries on the upper level. Today, the Royal Scottish Academy Building is managed by National Galleries Scotland but a 1910 Order grants the RSA permanent administration offices in the building.

Architecture

The RSA building is designed in the neo-classical style, modelled on a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Doric temple. The rectangular structure is faced with

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone from Culallo, Fife, and Craigleith. It is surrounded by a

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

of fluted

Doric columns The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

on a stylobate. A Doric

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

runs above the columns, consisting of a sculpted acanthus

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

with

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s. The north and south elevations are fronted by prostyle octastyle porticoes surmounted by large pediments decorated with scrolled foliate carving. The east and west sides feature smaller pedimented projections. The north portico on the Princes Street side is topped by a large statue of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

styled as

Britannia The image of Britannia () is the national personification of United Kingdom, Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used by the Romans in classical antiquity, the Latin was the name variously appli ...

, sculpted by Sir John Steell (Playfair's original drawings indicate that a Britannia statue with a reclining lion was originally intended for the building). Each of the four corners of the building is topped by a pair of carved stone sphinxes, also by Steell. In 2003 railings (lost in World War II) together with a series of traditional lamps, were restored around both the academy and the National Gallery behind, isolating each building from the public space here. In the 2010s, the RSA building was refurbished as part of the £32 million Playfair Project, and linked to the Scottish National Gallery by a subterranean public area to create a single, integrated arts complex with an additional entrance in Princes Street Gardens. File:Detail on Royal Scottish Academy on the Mound.jpg, Playfair's fine detailing File:Queen Victoria (5720030642).jpg, Steell's rooftop statue of Queen Victoria File:Royal Scottish Academy (4788127102).jpg, One of Playfair's Sphynxes File:Royal Scottish Academy (5636103072).jpg, One of the side doors File:Académie Royale Écossaise Édimbourg 9.jpg, A side

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

The Royal Scottish Academy Building is frequently confused with the neighbouring building, the

Scottish National Gallery The National (formerly the Scottish National Gallery) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Play ...

(SNG), due to their architectural similarity. The RSA Building is surrounded by fluted

, while the SNG is distinguished by its colonnade of plainer Ionic columns. File:Royal Scottish Academy 20140319.jpg, The RSA Building with fluted Doric columns File:Scottish National Gallery map Edinburgh.png, Both the RSA and the SNG are located on The Mound, with the SNG to the rear File:Princess Street (i.e. Princes Street) and castle from Scott's Monument, Edinburgh, Scotland-LCCN2001705993.jpg, The RSA (right) and the SNG (left) File:Scottish National Gallery.jpg, The Scottish National Gallery, with Ionic columns

Exhibitions

Exhibition space is shared throughout the year by the RSA with the NGS and other exhibiting societies: the Society of Scottish Artists, Visual Arts Scotland and the Royal Society of Watercolourists.

References

External links

The Royal Scottish Academy
{{Culture and leisure facilities in Edinburgh Art museums and galleries in Edinburgh National Galleries Scotland New Town, Edinburgh Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Neoclassical architecture in Scotland Buildings and structures completed in 1826 1826 establishments in Scotland Listed museum buildings in Scotland