page_title: Robert Gordon University - Garthdee campus
section_title: Gray's School of Art building
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Gordon University - Garthdee campus / The campus today / Gray's School of Art building
caption_attribution_description: English: Gray's School of Art building at the Robert Gordon University, Garthdee campus, Aberdeen, UK. The design was inspired by the work of American architect Mies van der Rohe.
context_page_description: The Garthdee campus is the Robert Gordon University's main campus, where all academic departments are located and teaching and research takes place. The campus is located in parkland on the outskirts of the city of Aberdeen and noted for its modern architecture.
  The Garthdee campus is situated in the south-west of the city, on the banks of the River Dee. For much of its history it was a greenfield site, with parts used as the gardens and estate of the manor of Garthdee House, farmland, and open meadows. The first university buildings were in use from the 1950s, with major additional developments in the 1960s, 1990s, 2000s and early 2010s. The design concept produced in the mid-1990s by architects Norman Foster + Partners was to separate the site into three zones; to the north, by the road, would be car parking; a central zone would contain the main buildings, and the southern boundary by the riverbank would be for parkland and wildlife. Ancient lines of beech trees and woodlands were retained in the concept. It also included a "university street" running east-west and connecting the buildings, which were to be "pavilions in the landscape".
context_section_description: The Gray's School of Art building opened in 1966 to allow the art school to expand from its Victorian building next to the Aberdeen Art Gallery in the city centre (now used as the university's Administration Building). The current building is an example of High Modernism and was designed by Michael Shewan, constructed entirely of steel and glass, with some minor use of brick at end walls. The building was heavily influenced by the Illinois Institute of Technology campus (particularly the S. R. Crown Hall), designed by the celebrated American modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.  Shewan worked for Tom Scott Sutherland's architectural practice and took it over after his death in 1963 (Scott Sutherland was the former owner of Garthdee House who donated it in the 1950s to the future university and for whom the current Scott Sutherland building is named). Much of Shewan's work demonstrated Mies' influence and ideas of modernism prevalent in architecture at the time. Gray's School of Art has been acclaimed by architectural critics and is one of the 60 DoCoMoMo Key Scottish Monuments, a list of notable Scottish post-war buildings selected as significant examples of architectural style, building materials and location.
  The building consists of a three-storey main block with perpendicular single-storey wings to each side. These wings rest on solid ground close to the main section of the building, but as the ground slopes away they are carried on slender steel columns. These three sides surround a quadrangle with a lawn and a small pond. Originally, the open side of this quadrangle led down via steps to a paved terrace and then onto the grass bank leading down to the River Dee; the side wings carried over the landscape produced a striking visual impact when seen from the riverbank. In the 1990s a temporary extension was constructed on this terrace and enclosed the southern side of the quadrangle, intended to relieve a shortage of space in the art school (which still requires to occupy part of the neighboring Scott Sutherland building). The building is supported by an external steel skeleton which permits floor-to-ceiling windows for its numerous studios and workshops. These facilities include studios for painting and drawing, printmaking, photography, ceramics, jewellery, 3D design, as well as computer labs, life model changing rooms, two large open-plan sculpture studios, a cafeteria and an art shop, which supplies art materials required by the students and staff. The building has suffered various unsympathetic changes and add-ons (primarily for storage or additional workshop space) that have compromised the original modernist design, and is currently in a state of disrepair due to lack of maintenance. It was considered for listed status by Historic Scotland in 2014; the University plans to demolish the building and has repeatedly attacked attempts to list the building for preservation.
caption: Gray's School of Art
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