Scottish architecture

Renaissance

The impact of the Renaissance on Scottish architecture has been seen as occurring in two distinct phases. First, from the early fifteenth century the selective use of Romanesque forms in church architecture, to be followed by a second phase of more directly influenced Renaissance palace building from the late fifteenth century. The re-adoption of low-massive church building with round arches and pillars, in contrast to the Gothic perpendicular style that was particularly dominant in England in the late Medieval era, may have been influenced by close contacts with Rome and the Netherlands, and may have been a conscious reaction to English forms in favour of continental ones. It can be seen in the nave of Dunkeld Cathedral, begun in 1406, the facade of St Mary's, Haddington from the 1460s and in the chapel of Bishop Elphinstone's Kings College, Aberdeen (1500–9). About forty collegiate churches were established in Scotland in late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Many, like Trinity College, Edinburgh, showed a combination of Gothic and Renaissance styles.