Reiach, Alan

Alan Reiach (1910-1992) was one of Scotland's most celebrated Scottish architects. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1934-35) and was supervised and much influenced by Frank Mears. He travelled in England and Norway, Russia and USA and sketching rapidly gave way to photography as his chosen method for recording what he saw. He undertook major architectural surveys, of 'International' architecture in Europe and North America (1934-37) and of Scottish vernacular architecture (1930s and early 1940s), the latter forming the bedrock of his publication Building Scotland (1942). The photography which forms the output of these surveys is a crucial record of architectural heritage.

Reiach's survey seems to have begun in 1937 at a time when the work of the National Trust at Culross and other preservation campaigns in face of the 1935 Housing Acts had started to regard Scottish vernacular architecture as worthy of preservation. He conducted his Caithness survey in his spare time during 1937, which was made more difficult by his being posted to London that year. He returned to Edinburgh in 1938 to take up a two year Research and Teaching Fellowship at the College of Art and after 1940 was made a member of the Scottish Office Team to oversee the Clyde Valley Regional Plan. He continued his surveys between 1938 and 1942. The project seems to have effectively ended by 1943.

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