FROM what the eminent architectural historian Charles McKean once described as an "atelier" at the "louche end" of Edinburgh's Blair Street, architect Richard Murphy has planned and rolled out some of Scotland's most recognisable public buildings in a practice career whose 21st year is marked in this RSA exhibition.
In 2001, his first decade of work was celebrated in an exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery, which he had recently converted into the light space it is today. So even if you've never heard of the man, the chances are you've stepped into a building he has built, reconfigured or extended. Other public projects include the Dundee Contemporary Arts, Stirling's Tolbooth Arts Centre and Napier University's computer centre.
The exhibition's introductory spiel makes barbed reference to Edinburgh's conservative planning rules and the relative lack of Murphy buildings in the capital as a result. That's slightly unfair, though if you like to ponder the "what ifs?" of a career, take a look at the model of the unbuilt Sean Connery Filmhouse.
A massive circular building, it was to have been constructed in Festival Square, in close dialogue with the similarly shaped Usher Hall opposite. In a phrase which could describe the city fathers' lack of imagination, or simply the project's lack of funds, one of the advertised films on the model is called Coming Up Short.
Richard Murphy rarely does, of course: mentored by Isi Metzstein at Edinburgh University in the early 1980s and greatly influenced by the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, he brings both light and intimacy to his designed spaces. This exhibition is slight – an audio-visual display projected onto a wall and 16 scale models of projects both built and unbuilt – but still those two qualities shine through.
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