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Summary

Description

John Murray Robertson, 1886. 2-storey, attic and basement, rectangular-plan, former Technical Institute. Stugged coursers,

rubble to sides and rear, pink ashlar dressings, grey slate platform roof. Base course, moulded cill course to principal floor, decorative panels depicting commerce and various trades ranged between string and cill course at 1st floor, wallhead and moulded eaves course. Timber sash and case windows, 2-pane to bottom, 4- and 6-pane to top, single windows to side elevation, bi- and tripartites to rear, and grouped in 4s and 5s to front.

FRONT (W) ELEVATION: slightly advanced pedimented bay to centre, shouldered to 1st floor; large, tripartite, keystoned depressed-arch doorpiece rising from basement to ground floor at centre with partially glazed 2-leaf timber pedimented doors and sidelights approached by steps with coped flanks, multi-pane glazing above and at flanking arches (partially replaced with plate glass to right), diaper work at spandrels, sculpted panels above, pilaster strips to angles with mannered anthemion caps; 5-light window to 1st floor, mullions moulded to top; sculpted decoration at pediment. Slightly recessed bays to left and right comprising 4-light window to basement, ground and 1st floors

with sculpted panels over ground floor windows and sunburst motifs on shouldered ashlar panels over 1st. Various rooflights.

N ELEVATION: 4 windows to basement, ground and 1st floor.

S ELEVATION: bipartite window to ground and first floor.

REAR ELEVATION: ground floor partially masked by former college hall, various windows at all floors, rooflights, large out-of-character dormer.

INTERIOR: central staircase with wrought-iron corkscrew balusters; some original joinery including boarded dados and lecture theatre pews; lattice work steel struts to attic roof.

FORMER COLLEGE HALL: single storey, rectangular-plan hall. Snecked rubble, ashlar dressings, grey slate mansard roof with continuous glazing to upper pitches, 3 ridge ventilators. Door and 2 windows to front elevation with tripartite segmental window above, ashlar-coped skews. Single space interior with lattice work steel roof struts.

BOUNDARY WALL AND GATEPIERS: low, coped boundary wall with replacement iron railings to Small's Wynd, 3 pyramidal-capped gatepiers.

Statement of Special Interest

The building was opened in 1888. Extensive internal renovations and alterations 1993-4. The former college hall which succeeded the old St John's Free Kirk on the site of the Old Medical School is presently used as a student shop (1993). The design was apparently influenced by the American architect Henry Hobhouse Richardson, with an element of Greek Revival from Alexander Thomson.

References

Bibliography

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