A DEDICATION to some of the best sculptural memorials in Scotland has been created by leading architect Alan Dunlop. He has now released the series of sketches for publication in the Sunday National to draw attention to landmark buildings that are often taken for granted because they are seen so often.

Those he has captured are all memorial buildings or sculptures and mark the fourth series of drawings of Scottish architecture he has completed since the lockdown in March.

“They are all dedicated to Scottish architecture and Scottish sculptors to remind us all about our history and our great cultural works and how important they are to Scotland,” said Dunlop, a visiting professor at Liverpool University and a fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. “I think it is particularly important to remind us how fantastic they actually are at this time when we are all feeling down and under pressure and don’t quite know what the future is,” he said.

Dunlop believes it is the first time anyone has made such a collection of important Scottish buildings.

The new sketches of great Scottish memorials follow a series on important Scottish ruins and a series of 12 drawings of buildings that Dunlop considers the best to have been built in Scotland over the last 600 years.

As with the previous sketches, the latest series includes contemporary buildings as well as those of the past All are drawings Dunlop has long wanted to do but never had the time until lockdown.

The fourth series includes the Wallace and Scott Monuments and Glasgow’s Cenotaph.

“I think they are all often taken for granted.

‘‘I don’t think Scots always recognise what incredible pieces of work they are,” he said. “They are memorials that are representations of a tradition and history in Scotland but I think people often walk past them and just don’t stop and think ‘crikey, that is absolutely fantastic’.”

Dunlop thinks the Cenotaph in George Square by JJ Burnet is possibly Glasgow’s greatest piece of memorial work, with the lions an important feature.

“They are by Ernest Gillick and they have this look of fortitude and immovability,” he said.

“The lions make it as much as anything else but the whole memorial is a really fundamental part of the make-up of George Square.”

The Wallace and Scott monuments are also “incredible pieces of work, beautifully made” although he said the Scott Monument in particular was “complicated and challenging” to draw.

Edinburgh’s monument to the Royal Scots Greys in West Princes Street Gardens forms part of the series.

It is another sculpture that has held a long fascination for Dunlop who became interested in the Royal Scots Greys after seeing a painting of the regiment’s famous charge at the Battle of Waterloo.

“It’s a fantastic memorial by William Rhind and gave me the opportunity to draw the castle in the background,” he said.

Mortonhall Crematorium in the city makes a perhaps surprising appearance. But Dunlop pointed out that it is a Category A listed building, considered to be one of Basil Spence’s finest works.

“You often see photographs of the chapel but it is within a whole garden area that includes a memorial garden so it is an extensive list of buildings rather than a single one,”

he said.

“Most of the drawings are of memorials and buildings that people see so regularly they don’t think much about them.

‘‘But I want to remind them just exactly what we have in Scotland as we have this wealth of architecture that is culturally important.”