The second week in July was truly “Architecture Week” at the Signet Library, with a sketching tour of the building by architecture students from the Catholic University of America being followed by a visit from the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland.

The Signet Library is one of the most unusual neoclassical buildings in Scotland and it has a unique offer to make to groups such as these. Few buildings can offer the work of so many important architects in such a small space – the overarching but short-lived genius William Stark, his great pupil William Playfair of National Gallery fame, William Burn, Robert Reid and Sidney Mitchell. Stark’s neoclassicism was informed by his apprenticeship in the palace-building Russia of the Empress Catherine the Great, and its light, fluid, playful take on the style contrasts with the often blocky and ponderous neoclassicism sometimes typical of Edinburgh.

The Catholic University students were kind enough to let us see their drawings. An exhibition was put on for the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and we illustrate here a couple of the more important display items.