The Architecture of Robert Adam(1728-1792) The Castle Style Edinburgh Bridewell - Introduction Home Prison in late 18th Century Scotland Robert Adam's Designs for the Bridewell Scottish Politics and the Bridewell Designs Glossary Links Bibliography Alexander Nasmyth - detail of a view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, painted in 1825, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1826.   Courtesy of :- Clydesdale Bank PLC
	About this project The focus of this study is a little-known building by the renowned Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728-1792). The building is the Bridewell, a new jail for Edinburgh, built between 1791 and 1796 on Calton Hill on a crag overlooking the city. It was demolished in the late nineteenth century. What can be derived from the project? This project touches on a number of topics that may be of interest for life-long learning. Coming at the end the eighteenth century, the need for a prison and the concepts behind the design reveal something of the politics and social conditions of the time. The design of this prison incorporated the latest ideas in prison design, including those of the great prison reformer John Howard. It was also the first to include invisible supervision and monitoring of prisoners, an idea proposed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham who called it Panopticon or Invisible Inspection. Robert Adam, Scotland's greatest architect, went through at least 6 designs for this prison, before a solution was reached that his clients were prepared to build. This study therefore reveals something of the process of designing buildings. The different design solutions also reveal something of the architectural styles, and artistic influences, ideas and concepts that Adam was working with. Some of these were common to late eighteenth century British and European thought and some were original to Robert Adam and greatly influenced the architecture of his and subsequent generations. Main features The project consists of linked web-pages and a multi-media catalogue, that together present, examine and explain the historical and art-history context of the Bridewell. An attempt has been made to keep textual explanation and commentary as clear and simple to follow as the (sometimes complex) material allows. These pages include many illustrations, including digitised copies of the original drawings and images generated from accurate 3D computer reconstructions along with some photographs. The multimedia catalogue, a resource that continues to grow, links the building into the larger picture of the Architecture of Robert Adam. Navigating the site. Navigate by clicking on highlighted link words to take you to the next page. Click Home at any time to return to this page. Generally clicking on a small image will bring up a larger version of that image in a new window, leaving the page from which the large image was called still open.
	Home Prison in late 18th Century Scotland Robert Adam's Designs for the Bridewell Scottish Politics and the Bridewell Designs Glossary  Links Bibliography Credits Multimedia Catalogue Catalogue Help Your Internet Browser must be set to read Java Applets to view the catalogue keywords: Robert Adam,architect,architecture,Castle style,Bridewell,Calton,gaol,jail,prison,Edinburgh,Scotland,Georgian Architecture,C18,eighteenth,century,visionary architecture,architectural visionary,visionary,Sandy Kinghorn,Cadking,visual catalogue,catalogues,RSL,SCRAN Published by Cadking Design Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland - Copyright © Sandy Kinghorn   This project is part of the RLS (Resources for Learning in Scotland) database held by SCRAN. The full RLS database can be accessed on http://www.rls.org.uk Optimised for Internet Explorer 5 and 6 (or later) and Netscape 4.5 (or later)