The Gardens | Edinburgh and La Geometrie Pratique

This paper describes two bodies of work consisting of artist's books, folios of drawings and boxed sets of items.
The first was centred around research into the Royal Scottish Academy building and their location in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh.
The work explores the building’s history as the original base for the Board of Manufacturers and Fisheries for Scotland and its role in the improvement of the linen industry in Scotland and how that was instrumental in building a strong economy in Scotland during the 18th century. This aspect of the work and the Board’s later mission to encourage ‘good taste and design’ is explored alongside a series of works that contrast the controlled design of the formal gardens and the infiltration of the indigenous species in the form of weeds in Princes Street Gardens.
The second, La Géometrie Pratique focuses on geometry and on 4 volumes drawn from the Old Lbrary at Traquair House where the numerous illustrations are set out with diagrams and angles that are positioned alongside ornate images of landscapes and gardens, mazes and grand chateaux.
I took this as a starting point to make a volume of drawings that is placed in the Old Library that imagines the garden designer at Traquair initiating plans with reference to La Géometrie Pratique with 3 dimensional forms recreated in the pavilion at the rear of the house. Measuring devices sit alongside each set of work – for planning on paper and then out in the garden. The proportions set out in these devices are based around the Pied do Roi system that was used in France until the revolution.