We are pleased to announce that we were recently generously donated three volumes of drawings by former GSA student, eminent architect and former President of the Royal Scottish Academy, Sir Anthony Wheeler! The text below has been adapted courtesy of GSA press officer Lesley Booth. The original article can be found here.
Wheeler’s family donated the three volumes, details of which are outlined below:
Volume 1 – The Fair City: A review of 18th and 19th architecture of Perth and District dates from 1948. This work contributed to Wheeler’s winning of the RIAS Rowand Anderson Silver Medal (an award which the RIAS continues to present to the best 5th year student to this day).
It features photographs and drawings of buildings of note, giving an early insight into his understanding of historic architecture which was later demonstrated in his work with partner Frank Sproson. Their practice was active in imaginative restorations under the National Trust’s Little Houses scheme (launched in 1960) and won many awards from the Saltire Society in the 1960s and 70s for their work on historic houses.
Volume 2: Contemporary Church Design. This sketchbook features drawings of churches from across Europe and North Africa including The Hogalid Church, Stockholm, Sweden, Le Raincy Church, Paris, France, Guildford Cathedral, England, UK and The Church of Port Lyautey, Morocco This understanding of church architecture was to be translated into what is perhaps Wheeler’s major achievement, the modernist St Columba’s Parish Church, Glenrothes.
Volume 3, which is signed and dated October 1949, is a detailed study of cantilevers featuring drawings of some of the most celebrated examples of the form including the Forth Bridge, London underground Central Line stations and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water which had been completed only 12 years earlier.
The volumes were donated by the architects daughter Pamela, who said; “I have been impressed with the wide range of archives available at GSA and my father would have been thrilled to know that a broad range of students could have the opportunity to access his work for many years to come.”
The Archives and Collections also hold Wheeler’s Travel Diary from when he won the John Keppie Travelling scholarship in 1948. He travelled to the Italian cities of Rome, Florence and Venice where he studied the architecture of various Loggias. See more in our previous blog post here.
To learn more, or to visit the Archives and Collections to see these volumes, please visit www.gsa.ac.uk/archives or email archives@gsa.ac.uk.
