Of the folk that I would have loved to have met, Robert Louis Stevenson would be first. Next would be Walter Scott. At this “impossible table” I would include one other: Colin McWilliam. You may not have heard of him.
Colin McWilliam (1928-89) was an ambassador for Scotland’s architecture and its conservation. He was a most-gifted pioneer.
In taking footsteps into Scotland’s built past I keep finding that I am following Colin. Yet we never met [I was still studying Medicine at the time of his death]. However I have been fortunate to meet his most-talented daughter, the writer, Candia McWillam.
Colin McWilliam held a first degree in architecture but then moved to specialise in architectural history. In Edinburgh he became Director of the Scottish National Buildings Record, moving to become editor of Pevsner’s Buildings of Scotland. As a lecturer at the Edinburgh College of Art he developed the MA/Diploma course in conservation.
To play this short film please click here or on the image above.
I recently came across, in the CANMORE archive, these Edinburgh Festival Brochures by Colin McWilliam. They are stylish:
