Modernist architects are like IS, says sculptor

0 Alexander Stoddart with his statue of William Henry Playfair One of the Queen’s official artists has accused modern architects of ravaging Scotland’s capital like IS terrorists.

Alexander Stoddart, Her Majesty’s Sculptor, said there was “almost a reflex” among designers to ruin Edinburgh.

Modernist architects were devoted to “consistent and wilful desecration” of places of peace and harmony according to Stoddart. He particularly singled out plans to modernise Thomas Hamilton’s neoclassical Royal High School, calling them “an outrage”.

He made the comments at the unveiling of his latest work, a bronze sculpture of William Henry Playfair, outside the National Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street. Stoddart said: “Modernism is a branch phenomenon of Isis.”