The power of Scotland

Designed by Catalan architect Enric Miralles, the Scottish Parliament has won a number of architectural awards, including the 2005 Stirling Prize.

The Scottish Parliament is (by some degree) the most incoherent building I have ever seen. Renowned postmodernist Charles Jencks described it as "quite a meal" - faint praise indeed. A very strange mix of post-modernism, brutalism and vernacular architecture, individual bits of the building are spectacular, but the whole is little more than a regurgitated mass of juxtapositions and alien iconographies.

Designed by Catalan architect Enric Miralles, the Scottish Parliament has won a number of architectural awards, including the 2005 Stirling Prize.

The Scottish Parliament is (by some degree) the most incoherent building I have ever seen. Renowned postmodernist Charles Jencks described it as “quite a meal” – faint praise indeed. A very strange mix of post-modernism, brutalism and vernacular architecture, individual bits of the building are spectacular, but the whole is little more than a regurgitated mass of juxtapositions and alien iconographies.

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