Edinburgh architecture: Scottish Parliament architect's widow says building was 'a miracle'

Benedetta Tagliabue said all the rows and controversies which surrounded the project made her fear it would not come to fruition.

And she described how, right at the start, her husband and Donald Dewar had clashed, making her think they would not win the competition to design the new parliament.

Benedetta Tagliabue outside the Scottish Parliament. Picture: Alan Peebles | Alan Peebles

But, speaking as part of a panel at a Festival of Politics event, she said it was "a fantastic building" which worked.

The Holyrood parliament building was officially opened in 2004 with a final price tag of £414 million - 10 times the original quoted cost - and three years later than planned.  Enric Miralles died before it was completed but Ms Tagliabue, who was also Miralles' professional partner, carried on with the project.

At the event marking 20 years since the parliament's opening, the panel was asked what inspired them about the building.  Ms Tagliabue recalled the project had frequently been on a knife edge.  "One of the inspirations now is that I see the building present and working - this is a miracle,” she said.

"Many times we do project competitions and they never come to reality - and with this there seemed to be a big possibility of not arriving to reality because there were so many controversies, so many difficulties. But it arrived at reality, it's a fantastic building. Now it works - it's hosting not only political life but also civic life. This is fantastic for me. Whenever I come here and see that I go away happier."

The Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood opened in 2004 | TSPL

EMBT, the architectural practice she founded with Miralles, won a competition in 2021 to design the Shenzhen Conservatory of Music in China. But Ms Tagliabue said: "Now they are building something which is not what we wanted.  

"It's very difficult to be able to follow an idea which remains true to its origin. This happened here.  We had many problems, many interruptions, but at the end everybody started to have the same vision.”

And she praised Donald Dewar, then Scottish Secretary and later First Minister, for the way he conducted the competition to select the designer for the parliament.

“One of the nice decisions of Donald Dewar was to interview architects. He asked specialists and made a list of the best architects in the world and then he had personal conversations. He wanted a real artist architect.   

“It was a long process, going from 20 architects to 10 to five and the conversation was personal because he was on the panel and there were five other people. Donald was very personally involved and this meant you had a real client with real ideas.

The then Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar and Scottish Parliament architect Enric Miralles in July 1998 | TSPL

“I remember at the beginning Donald and Enric started to fight.  Donald was asking Enric 'How would you respond to this question that I give you...?' and Enric said 'Well, I’m an architect and you're a politician, I respond in my way as you respond to politics in your way'. 

“I thought, ok - bye bye.  Instead the relations became stronger.  I think Donald Dewar appreciated more the strength of Enric and at the end he chose him.  But when he chose us in the final result of the competition, we also had a very clear vision that we knew we had to follow.”

She recalled that the competition took place in 1998, before the parliament had come into existence and so there was much uncertainty about all that was needed in the building. “If you don't have a parliament, how can you explain how the parliament can work?” she said.

“You can have vague ideas, but the ideas have to become more clear when the actual parliament started to exist - and then they said ‘We need a place for the press, did anyone consider that?’  And then the programme started to get defined and the square metres started to double.”

One questioner in the audience voiced his appreciation of the internal design of the parliament but said he did not like the exterior. “How do I get to love the outside of this building?”

Ms Tagliabue said: “Old Edinburgh is very ornate, it's very beautiful, there are a lot of details, but you cannot mimic that in a contemporary building.  So we tried to have many materials and a facade which has complexity and a vibration.

“We tried to have a facade with cement or concrete as a very strong material which becomes beautiful and it's next to stone coming from Scotland, next to another stone which was supposed to be basalt from Scotland - but in the end it was not, for budget reasons - and then other materials on different levels, which create shadows, which are made from wood from Scotland, which is oak.

“I think all this vibration was supposed to introduce something similar to what you see in nature, where you find different layers of stones, different layers of vegetation, different colours , so the facade is not a flat building, it is not a post-modern imitation of somthing which lready existed, but it' a new way to create a vibration.”