(b Drogheda, Ireland, 24 June 1905; d Dublin, 24 Jan 1989). Irish architect. He was at the forefront of the Modern Movement in Ireland early in his career. He was articled to the firm of Jones & Kelly in Dublin in 1923-6. After a short time in other offices and acting professionally with Dublin's Abbey Players he started his own practice in 1928. His development of the Modern Movement style evident in the County Hospitals at Portlaoise (1936), Co. Laois, and Tullamore (1937), Co. Offaly, is perhaps best expressed in Scott House (1938), his home at Sandycove Point, Dublin, and in the glass-walled Irish pavilion at the World's Fair in New York in 1939. Despite Ireland's neutrality during World War II few notable commissions occurred in the 1940s, and his next major building, generally acknowledged as his finest, was the Irish Transport Board Bus Station and offices (1950-53) for the Department of Social Welfare at Store Street, Dublin. The bus station occupies the ground floor, and above is an L-shaped office block with arms of differing heights. Ronald Tallon (b 1927) and Robin Walker (b 1924) became associates in Scott's practice in 1959 and partners in 1967 and, together with his son Niall Scott (b 1940), continued the practice after his retirement. Much of the later work of the office has characteristics of the work of Mies van der Rohe, for example the impeccably organized and detailed two-storey Radio Telef?s Eireann Broadcasting Centre (1959-61) at Donnybrook, Dublin, and the Carroll's Cigarette Factory (1967-70) at Dundalk, Co. Louth. In 1975 he was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. Throughout his life he gave much support to young artists working in Ireland.
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The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art. Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.