Alan Balfour

“Why this weak indulgent puppet of France and the Roman Catholic Church should have become such a romantic figure in Scottish myth is inexplicable. (So peculiar was this last Jacobite rebellion that some historical pespective is necessary: it took place while Benjamin Franklin was corresponding with his English associates on electricity, the brothers Adam were still at the University of Edinburgh, and the idea of building a new town was forming in the imagination of Provost [George] Drummond.)”
― Alan Balfour, Creating a Scottish Parliament

“Yet here he has consciously denied the Parliament of Scotland a familiar consumable image. When a lesser architect with a less wise client could have contrived a form, an image that could have popularised the project and the mission of government (playing with the stereotypes of Scottish history and charcater), Miralles has given a form to Parliament devoid of symbols (at least easily recognised symbols), devoid of answers or illusions, its form representing nothing but its own nature...

...the Parliament seems to be an object outside of history, a place speaking only of the circumstances of its own nature and use... the architect of the Scottish Parliament has created an object promising nothing but itself. At this time and place in Scottish history and to a public wary of the easy promises of politicians, it is too early to say anything. ...what the Parliament will symbolise will be formed in the events of the history it makes, formed and reformed over the centuries in response to the laws made within it and its relation to the changing idea of Scotland. It is not shaped to be loved, to be immediately attractive, to make promises it cannot keep, to toy with vulgar myths or to play with representations of history or culture, and it may never be comfortable.”
― Alan Balfour, Creating a Scottish Parliament