Hippolyte Blanc - Architectural Career

Architectural Career

For much of his career Blanc's office was at 40 Frederick Street, extremely close to his parental home and their shop. In 1901 the office moved to 1 Rutland Square.

From the early 1870s, Blanc began to undertake private commissions. In 1875 he won his first architectural competition, for Christ Church, Morningside, and the following year won a second, for Mayfield Free Church. He left the Office of Works in 1878 to concentrate on his increasing workload, and by 1887 he had taken on a partner, James Gordon.

Blanc executed numerous church buildings, including Kirkliston Free Church (1880), St Luke's, Broughty Ferry (1884), Coats Memorial Baptist Church, Paisley (1885), and Morningside Free Church, Edinburgh (1892), now the Church Hill Theatre. He carried out restoration work to Edinburgh Castle (1886), John Knox House (1886), St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh (1892), and St Duthac's Church, Tain (1896). Secular work includes Mayville Gardens in Trinity, Edinburgh, a pleasant and quirky Victorian cul-de-sac with a low terrace of ornate houses on each side (1881). Other major commissions included houses at Eriska, Argyll, and Ferguslie Park, Paisley (1888–91), since demolished. Bangour Village Hospital, West Lothian, was a competition win in 1898, and he designed the former Bernard's Brewery buildings in Gorgie (1887). Blanc also designed several monuments. In 1912 he took his son, Frank Edward Belcombe Blanc, into partnership, and from 1913 his own architectural work drew to a close. His son continued to practice under the name Hippolyte J. Blanc & Son, until around 1950.