The Royal Scottish Academy building, the home of the Royal Scottish Academy, is situated on the Mound in the centre of Edinburgh, was built by William Henry Playfair in 1822-6 and extended in 1831-6 for the Board of Manufactures and Fisheries. Along with the adjacent National Gallery of Scotland, their neo-classical design helped transform Edinburgh in to a modern day Athens of the North.
One of the bodies that proposed the building in 1821 was the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland after which the building was named the Royal Institution from 1826 to 1911. From the completion of the original building, the Royal Institution shared it with the Board of Manufactures (the owners), the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
The building, along with the National Gallery of Scotland was remodelled in 1912 by William Thomas Oldrieve. The statue of Queen Victoria top the building was sculpted by Sir John Steell.
The building is managed by the National Galleries of Scotland but a 1910 Order grants the RSA permanent administration offices in the building. The building was recently refurbished as part of the Playfair Project.
Exhibition space is shared throughout the year by the RSA with the NGS and other exhibiting societies: the Society of Scottish Artists, Visual Arts Scotland and the Royal Society of Watercolourists.
Famous quotes containing the words royal, scottish, academy and/or building:
“Although my royal rank causes me to doubt whether my kingdom is not more sought after than myself, yet I understand that you have found other graces in me.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“We’ll never know the worth of water till the well go dry.”
—18th-century Scottish proverb, collected in James Kelly, Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs, no. 351 (1721)
“...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“The artist must be an egotist because, like the spider, he draws all his building material from his own breast. But just the same the artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)