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THE ARCHITECTURAL TOURIST
Ian Stuart Campbell FRIAS FSAI


This new colour collection of drawings is based on sketch books from the architectural tourist’s decade long project visiting iconic buildings and remarkable places around Europe.
In the guise of ‘The Architectural Tourist’ Ian Stuart Campbell has enjoyed
sketching many locations around Europe, on site in ink, and taking photographs and writing essays.
This format for these studies was devised in 2010 by Sharon McCord, then Editor of the newly launched Quarterly Journal of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. At Sharon’s invitation Stuart’s sketches and impressions were published as a regular feature in the magazine, before subsequently being published as books by RIAS Publishing,
The Architectural Tourist Vol1 (2012) and Vol 2 (2019).
The pandemic years of 2020-22 however restricted travel for everyone and took artists into lock-down within their studios. Only when we lost the right to travel or even go outside our homes, did we start to play that game of ‘where would you rather be?’ At that point Stuart’s many sketch books offered recollections of happier days, and happier places.
Revisiting these sketches brought an opportunity to experiment with colour, use of larger canvases and incorporation of more detail. This was a welcome change from his previous speed sketching ‘on site’ for the Architectural Tourist.
He does however miss the cheery street conversations and the
un-yeilding bollards used as seats at each venue.