The Scots-Italian Connection

 

James Robertson, a Ph.D student at the Manchester School of Architecture, has been awarded a Rome Scholarship in Architecture at the British School at Rome for the 2008-09 academic year. James will be continuing his research intended to  illuminate and challenge the received wisdom about the Glasgow architect Jack Coia and the ecclesiastical work of his practice Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. James’s period in Italy will allow him to cover three particular aspects of his study in detail, namely the influence of Coia’s Italian heritage and his travels there from the 1920s onwards, the relationship between his Scottish Catholic clients and the liturgical changes promoted by the Vatican in the mid-twentieth century, and the relationship between architecture and contemporary artists between the 1920s and the 1960s. James’s studies are supervised by Eamonn Canniffe and Dr. Bill Brogden (Aberdeen University).

 

A virtual tour of the British School at Rome is available HERE.