![]() ![]() It is a symmetrical design with projecting pedimented ends (featuring Giant Orders of square columns), between which is a long façade with first-floor windows set behind a regular row of square mullions reminiscent of Schinkel's use of the same motif at the Berlin Schauspielhaus (Play House) of 1818–21. ![]() Moray Place, Strathbungo (1857–61), is unquestionably his finest achievement in this respect, and is arguably the most distinguished Greek-inspired group of terrace-houses anywhere. He also designed several terraces of houses. Among the most outstanding houses are the Double Villa (25 and 25a Mansion-house Road, Langside (1856–7-illustrated in Blackie's Villa and Cottage Architecture (1868)- two identical semidetached houses facing in opposite directions, composed asymmetrically, with low-pitched roofs and glazing well set back from the stone mullions) ) Holmwood, Cathcart (1856–8-also illustrated in Blackie's publication- a sumptuous villa at once Classical and Picturesque, with a circular bay-window featuring a peristyle of inventive columns, and a rich scheme of interior painted decoration and furnishings, also designed by the architect) and Ellisland, 200 Nithsdale Road, Pollokshields (1871-a single-storey symmetrical villa with Graeco-Egyptian detail). ![]() Baird and Thomson built a number of villas in the Glasgow suburbs and along the Clyde estuary, some of which were vaguely Gothic and others influenced by the round-arched styles, but by 1857 Thomson had developed the refined and simplified Greek-inspired architectural language with which he was to be associated thereafter. Known as ‘Greek’ Thompson because of his frequent allusions to the Greek Revival in his buildings, his work was nevertheless very eclectic and inventive, drawing on a variety of sources, including Ancient Egyptian, Persian, and even vaguely Indian architecture, put together with enormous verve and sureness of touch. He lived and worked for most of his life in Glasgow, starting with a period ( c.1836–49) with John Baird before he established his own practice in partnership with another John Baird (1816–93- Thomson's brother-in-law ( Thomson and Baird married Jane (1825–99) and Jessie (1827–66), daughters of the London architect Michael Angelo Nicholson) ) until 1857, then (1857–71) with his brother, George Thomson (1819–78), and finally (1873–5) with Robert Turnbull (1839–1905), when the firm was called A. Scots Neo-Classical architect, the greatest of his time, and a formidable and original designer, some of whose works have affinities with those of Schinkel. ![]()
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