Architecture in modern Scotland

Architecture in modern Scotland encompasses all building in Scotland, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the present day. The most significant architect of the early twentieth century was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who mixed elements of traditional Scottish architecture with contemporary movements. Estate house design declined in importance in the twentieth century. In the early decades of the century, traditional materials began to give way to cheaper modern ones. After the First World War, Modernism and the office block began to dominate building in the major cities and attempts began to improve the quality of urban housing for the poor, resulted in a massive programme of council house building. The Neo-Gothic style continued in to the twentieth century but the most common forms in this period were plain and massive Neo-Romanesque buildings.

After the Second World War, brutalist tower blocks were adopted as a solution and this period saw the building of new towns, including Glenrothes and Cumbernauld, but the social and building problems of these constructions soon became apparent. The creation of new towns and council house estates necessitated the rapid supply of new churches. From the 1980s Scottish architecture began to recover its reputation, with new buildings like that created to house the Burrell Collection in Glasgow and more recently the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh. There has also been urban regeneration, involving the replacement and renovation of existing buildings and landscapes. The 1980s saw the growth of speculative house building by developers and the introduction of English brick and half-timbered vernacular styles to Scotland. As the production of state sponsored housing subsided in the 1970s there was a return to conservatism in church design, but there were some original and post-modern designs from the 1980s.