Summary: As the debate about Scottish independence rages on, this book takes a timely look at how Scotland's politics have been expressed in its architecture. It is an aspect of Scottish history that has hitherto been little discussed, and yet the architecture of Scotland – in particular the Scotch Baronial style – has been of great consequence to the ongoing narrative of Scottish national identity. This book fills that gap in scholarship through a politically-framed examination of Scotland's architecture, tracing how it was used to serve successive political agendas within Scotland during the three 'unionist centuries' from the early 17th to the early 20th century. It is a history which encompasses all the principal public architectural works of secular Scottish architecture of the period, from the palaces left behind by the 'lost' monarchy to revivalist castles and the proud town halls of the Victorian age, tracing their wildly fluctuating political and national connotations. It is also a story which reaches beyond Scotland and into a wider, international picture: the Scotch Baronial was the world's first self-consciously nationalist architecture – the harbinger of an international movement of 'national' styles, rejecting classical antiquity for local medieval inspiration. The book ends by bringing the story into the 21st century, relating the paradox of contemporary 'neo-modernist' architecture in today's Scotland, as exemplified in the Holyrood parliament, with the paradoxes embodied in 300 years of the Scotch Baronial style.

Contents: Chapter 1: 1603-1660: Empty royal palaces and castellated court architecture. Chapter 2: 1660-1689: From restitution to rejection of the old order. Chapter 3: 1689-1750: The architecture of dynastic struggle. Chapter 4: 1750-1790: Enlightenment and Romanticism. Chapter 5: 1790-1820: Scotland and England in the Age of Revolutionary War. Chapter 6: 1820-40: Scott, Abbotsford and 'Scotch' Romanticism . Chapter 7: 1840-70: Billings and Bryce: mid-century Baronial . Chapter 8: 1870-1900: Traditionalism. Chapter 9: External reflections: 'national' Scottish architecture and the empire. Chapter 10: 1914 onwards: Scottish architectural identity in the age of Modernism. Conclusion: The architecture of Unionist Nationalism - and its international significance.

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