...it happens

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No matter what you might think of the exterior, anyone who’s been inside Enrico Miralles’ parliament building has to concede that it is simply a beautiful space.

Despite the extensive use of concrete and the low ceiling of the main lobby, there is something organic about Holyrood; with its odd angles and seams of wood running throughout the structure, you feel as if you’ve been transported to a hollow beneath the roots of a great old tree. Echoing its ancient neighbour, Arthur’s Seat, the building belies its youth in feeling earthy, honest, and imbued with wisdom.

The effect, while never entirely lost, changes somewhat as you climb to the viewing gallery of the debating chamber. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows that seem to cover every exterior surface, you notice the thick cables span the height of the building, supporting the weight of the convex network of wooden beams on the chamber’s ceiling; like ribs, they seem to restrain a powerful life force.

The human always seems small and insignificant in such huge, living buildings – in danger of being lost in the greater meaning the space exudes; like a solitary soul in a cathedral, a lonely skiff on the open sea, or Gordon Brown at the dispatch box.

Occasionally these living spaces, by their sheer, immovable, indifferent grace alone, seem to pass judgement on those than inhabit them. For instance, who amongst us can see images of George Bush sat in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk, and reflect on all those who have gone before him – real and fictional – and not be a little bit sick in their mouth?

Holyrood, imbued in all its natural glory with a spritely Scots wit, has taken a more proactive approach to those that scurry about in its passages. Before last year’s elections, the chamber had to be evacuated when a wooden beam broke free from its mooring and dangled there, for a time threatening to wipe out the Scottish Conservative Party.

On the day that I went to see Alex Salmond defend his local income tax proposals at First Minister’s Questions, the building had struck again. In the week when the parliament’s window cleaning bill was revealed as being in excess of £100,000, it gave me frisson of joy to see that facing Mr Salmond’s place amongst his MSPs, too high for even the most determined squeegee-jockey to reach, was one of the aforementioned picture windows, liberally coated with birdshit.

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