| Description | The Duncan & Munro Collection consists of approximately 4,500 drawings and 1,400 manuscripts. Prior to World War II, drawings are largely ink and colour-wash on paper, with a few designs carried out on linen or oil-pigmented paper. Post-1945 virtually all drawings were completed on tracing paper, with occasional surviving mechanical copies on linen. The manuscripts in the collection are chiefly specifications for jobs undertaken by the practice. In many cases, the proposed plans, sections and elevations of a building were drawn on a single sheet of paper. Taking into account the total number of drawings, this indicates the large number of projects undertaken by the practice.
The range of work tackled by the practice throughout its lifetime reflects the changes that were taking place in the lifestyle of the community they served. Their work on farm steadings and rural cottages at the beginning of the 20th century often included details of new water supplies, and during the 1940s the practice found itself busy working on sanitary improvements to the schools they had designed years earlier. The plans of the steadings show clearly the changes taking place in farm practice as the century progressed. The poultry houses the practice designed in the 19th century had turned into battery farming sheds by the 1942. Cartsheds and stables were altered as the horse was replaced by the tractor. The different housing types worked on by the practice indicate the shifts taking place in the society of the time. Their early work on farm cottages was replaced by work on the suburban villas and social housing of the 1940s. The 1950s saw the car come into more general use and the practice supervised the installation of petrol pumps with their illuminated signs throughout the countryside.
There are also contract books and job ledgers. |
| Administrative History | James Duncan (1828 - 1907) was the son of George Duncan, a Turriff mason. He commenced practice as an architect c. 1860, the school at Cuminestone being his first known work (1862). His son William Liddle Duncan (1870 - 1951) studied at Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen and was apprenticed to his father in 1887, before completing his architectural education in Edinburgh. In 1897 he was taken into taken into partnership in his father's firm and until 1907 the firm was known as James Duncan & Son.
After James Duncan's death the practice became William Duncan and remained so for the subsequent 40 years. In 1947 the practice was renamed W L Duncan & Munro, the latter being James Munro (d 2001) of Victoria Terrace, Turriff, who had worked in Duncan's office since 1930. Following William Liddle Duncan's death in 1951 James Munro took over the practice until his retirement in 1975.
From "Creating a Future for the Past: the Scottish Architects' Papers Preservation Project" by RCAHMS.
See also: Dictionary of Scottish Architects: http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=204443 |