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Pidgeon Digital archive trial now available from the University of Edinburgh Library!
Listen to the greatest minds in modern architecture. Access hundreds of illustrated talks and interviews with major twentieth century architects within this online audio-visual collection. Founded by Monica Pidgeon, editor of influential radical magazine Architectural Design. Fully searchable illustrated talks and transcripts. Notable speakers include 17 Pritzker Prize winners and 15 RIBA Royal Gold Medal winners, including Zaha Hadid, Ted Happold, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Rogers, Cedric Price, Norman Foster and Felix Candela, to name but a few.
Free 60 day trial access using this link to our current library e-resources trials.
Do you LOVE FILM? Would you like to be able to watch the best in UK and international film, curated by experts? Then the BFI Player is for you!
All students and staff of the University of Edinburgh (including ECA!) can register for free access to the BFI Player subscription, thanks to the University of Edinburgh Library.
To access this fantastic resource, follow the guidance here.
BFI Player is included in our library catalogue DiscoverEd and on our list of film databases. Enjoy!
The 20 volume set has been described as the “first great modern-day compendium of the world’s Buddhist arts”, it contains nearly 10,000 entries and over 14,000 full-colour images, exploring art, architecture, sculpture, cave and rock painting, caligraphy, decorative arts and more.
The works of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 – 2006) are the focus of our new display at ECA Library, Evolution House, “Evening will come…”, marking the centenary of this renowned artist, poet and garden-maker.
The display features book-works, cards and ephemera by Finlay and artists with whom he collaborated, with his imprint the Wild Hawthorn Press, which Finlay set up in 1961.
Finlay’s works explore themes such as boats, sailing and shipping, the French Revolution, concrete poetry, the pastoral, Classicism, and the Enlightenment, and have not been without controversy. Over his long lifetime he had fallings out with local government, arts funding organisations, and European cultural organisations, and even now causes some critics to become enraged.
From 15 September 2025 changes will be made to the opening hours of some of our libraries, these changes are set out below. Please check the library opening hours webpage for full details of all University of Edinburgh library opening hours.
Semester opening times of four site libraries – Law, ECA (Evolution House, West Port) Moray House, Noreen and Kenneth Murray – will be: Monday to Thursday 9.00am-8.00pm; Friday 9.00am-5.00pm (9.00am-7.00pm for Law, and Noreen and Kenneth Murray) .
New College Library will close at 5.00pm Monday-Friday .
Weekend opening hours of the following libraries – Law, ECA, Moray House, Noreen and Kenneth Murray and New College – will be standardised to 12.00pm-5.00pm.
The Art & Architecture Library (Minto House, Chambers St) will close for University Christmas and Summer vacation periods, with a Click and Collect service in place for accessing that collection during those 2 vacation periods. (i.e. A&A Library will be open for each Easter vacation period).
Changes at the Main Library, George Square:
From 1 September, the EdHelp service desk in the Main Library will close at 7.00pm weekdays and 5.00pm at weekends. This does not affect the opening hours of the Main Library building itself, which remains open 24/7.
Changes at the Western General Hospital Library :
The Western General Hospital Library will convert to a self-service Student Study Area from 1 September.
As the Ingleby Gallery curators explain: “Every element in an exhibition of work by Peter Liversidge begins at the artist’s kitchen table with Liversidge sitting alone writing proposals on an old manual typewriter. These hand-typed pages, present an array of possible and impossible ideas for performances and artworks in almost every conceivable medium. In a sense the first realisation of every work is in Liversidge’s head, then on the page, then in the mind of the reader, and finally (perhaps) as a physical object or happening. In every case, the first ‘artwork’ from any series of proposals is the bookwork that presents the collected ideas.”
The books include:
Proposals for Printed Matter Inc.
Proposals for Reykjavik
Proposals for the Flag Club
Proposals for East Quay
Proposals for Lancaster Arts
Proposals for Frome
Proposals for Hong Kong
Proposals for Huntly
Proposals for Kiasma
Proposals for Brussels
Proposals for Town Hall Hotel and Apartments
Proposals for the Berggruen Institute
Proposals for Basis
Proposals for CGP London
Proposals for Santarcangelo
Proposals for Liverpool
Proposals for Sean Kelly Gallery
Proposals for Antarctica
Proposals for SNGMA
Proposals for Barcelona
Proposals for Bonniers Konsthall
Proposals for Royal London Hospital
Liversidge has himself said: “In a sense they are all possible and the bookwork that collates the proposals allows the reader to curate their own show, and because of its size and scale the bookwork allows an individual to interact with each of the proposals on their own terms, one to one.” [Cell Project Space, 2005].
We wish all our students and staff a very productive semester 2, and invite you to come along to ECA Library to enjoy our new display of book works by artist and print maker Susie Wilson.
We are fortunate to have several artists’ books in our collection by Susie, in addition to the major boxed work she created in response to her residency at ECA library in 2016.
The works featured are:
Cabinet on left:
1: Flutter, Edinburgh, 2011
2: Inside Outside, Edinburgh, 2011
3: Hidden Inside, Edinburgh, 2011
4: Tunnel, Edinburgh, 2011
5: Insect Life, Edinburgh, 2011
Cabinet on right:
6: Untitled, Edinburgh, 2016
For more information about Susie’s work click here. [This display has now closed.]
We are delighted to have a pop up display of books relating to British architect Cedric Price (1934-2003), at the A&A Library, to coincide with the new Thinkbelt exhibition at the Mathew Gallery, Minto House.
The exhibition celebrates the legacy of Cedric Price and prompts reflection on how architecture can be useful, timely, delightful and permeable to respond to current environmental and social challenges.
Curated by Prof. María José Martínez Sánchez, Dr. Ana Bonet Miró, Martin Brown, the exhibition runs from 11-22 November 2024.
The exhibition’s centrepiece features two original market stall prototypes from the Drawing Matter Collection, designed by Price and never exhibited before. Alongside these prototypes, a range of archival materials – including prints of original drawings, texts, ephemera, film extracts and audio recordings – offers a glimpse into the diversity of Price’s practice and the interdisciplinary conversations that animated it.
In the spirit of Price’s Potteries Thinkbelt project, this initiative aims to stimulate discussions about some of the key principles of his architecture – such as the provision of user-centred designs that increase choice, encourage change, do more with less, facilitate easy assembly and disassembly, and create responsive designs that delight the communities they serve – in relation to a selection of pedagogies and practices at each school. It prompts some of Price’s key design questions: Who do we design for? How little need be done? For how long is it useful? How to make time visible in our designs? What might design for pleasure and delight mean today?
