Isis remark misses target

If Alexander Stoddart was looking for maximum publicity for his comments about Edinburgh’s architecture then he could not have chosen his words any better.

By comparing modernism to the work of the group known as Islamic State (IS) or Isis, Mr Stoddart, one of the Queen’s official artists, undermined his own arguments and made himself look rather silly into the bargain.

A sculptor whose works include a statue of Adam Smith on the Royal Mile and one of William Henry Playfair outside the National Museum of Scotland, Mr Stoddart said the capital’s classical architecture was under threat from modernism’s “Isis” tendency.

And he claimed modernist architects were devoted to “consistent and wilful desecration” of places of peace and harmony.

The sculptor believes modern buildings are destroying Edinburgh’s heritage in the same way Isis destroyed the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.

Aesthetes have no doubt raged against modern building works since the beginning of time.

And undoubtedly modern buildings have been allowed to leave a scar on Edinburgh, notably the redevelopment of George Square by Edinburgh University in the 1960s and the brutalism of the St James Centre, now thankfully being demolished.

But Mr Stoddart’s comparison of city planners and architects to the death cult of Isis is ridiculous.

While his comments do him no favours personally, they are also likely to fail to engender any serious debate about the sort of architecture Edinburgh needs to represent a city both proud of its past and looking to the future.