Better Days: gifts to mark Year of Architecture

Scotland’s MSPs to receive unique, hand-made ceramics to mark the Year of Architecture, Innovation and Design

Scotland’s political leaders are to be gifted unique hand-made ceramics created by some of Scotland’s leading female architects to mark 2016 as the Year of Architecture, Innovation and Design in Scotland.

‘The Better Days’ project is the brain child of prominent architect Jude Barber (above) and seeks to raise questions and awareness about Scotland’s political aspirations for architecture and stimulate renewed thought and discussion on the built environment.

The project is part of a busy programme of special events planned to celebrate the Saltire Society’s 80^th anniversary year and was inspired by the Saltire Society’s seminal 1944 publication ‘Building Scotland’, by Alan Reiach and Robert Hurd.

The powerful and poetic foreword to the publication, written by the then Secretary of State for Scotland Thomas Johnston, forms the main driver for the project. It says:

“And in this beautiful land of ours, the free people who inhabit it, and who have paid such a high price for their freedom, will, in the better days that are to be, surely insist that the architecture of their buildings, public and private, shall be worthy of them.”

Every MSP will be gifted with an individually crafted ceramic containing words and forms derived from Jude Barber’s ‘The Better Days’ publication, accompanied with an invitation to consider the important role that architecture and design plays within our everyday lives.

‘The Better Days’ is being exhibited at Project Spaces in Glasgow until 9^th July and forms part of the Archi-Fringe 2016 programme. Following conclusion of the exhibition, all of the Scottish Parliament’s 129 elected members will each receive their own ceramic as a permanent souvenir of the Year of Architecture, Innovation and Design.

Meanwhile, Jude will join award winning architects Malcolm Fraser and Neil Gillespie OBE this Thursday (7 July) at South Block, Glasgow, for a panel discussion on the themes that have emerged in their exploration of contemporary Scottish architecture. Tickets are free and available from the Saltire Society’s website – www.saltiresociety.org.uk/event/building-scotland-past-and-future

Ahead of the panel discussion, Jude Barber said: “I am really looking forward to Thursday’s event and for what I’m sure will be a stimulating discussion about our built environment and the challenges and possibilities facing Scottish architecture and place making.”

“Malcolm, Neil and I all have something in common; a strong desire to improve the built environment in this country, and I hope that this event, their pamphlets and my ‘Better Days’ project will bring a renewed focus to architecture’s important role and how it greatly enhances our day to day lives.”

Malcolm Fraser’s pamphlet ‘Shoddy Schools and Fancy Finance: the miss-selling of PFI’ and Neil Gillespie’s ‘Building Scotland’ publication, which have been created as part of the Saltire Society’s 80^th anniversary programme, will be available to purchase after the discussion.