AN AMERICAN woman has gone viral after critiquing the Scottish Parliament building and describing it as having “one of the most confusing exteriors” she has ever seen.
TikTok user @432parkavehatepage has had over 151,000 views since yesterday in her video about the £414million building at Holyrood in Edinburgh.
The TikTok star, known online as Louisa, captioned her critic of the government building with the words: “Just….why?”.
In the clip, which she shared with her 188.4k followers, Louisa appears baffled by the building’s design and questions why the alcove windows have been placed there.
She also criticises the “haphazard-looking wooden sticks” design on the windows which were designed by Spanish architect Enric Miralles who died before completion.
Louisa has shared dozens of TikTok videos reviewing architecture designs from around the world and has gained more than 4.6m likes for her clips.
In her video of the Scottish Parliament Building, she says: “I mentioned before how I like a lot of parliament buildings because countries use them to say something about themselves, where that be that they’re old and well established.
“Using maybe older architectural styles, or that they’re super rich using fancier or more extravagant styles.
“You know, they’re always trying to say something. But I, for the life of me, cannot figure out what the Scottish Parliament is trying to say.
“It has one of the most confusing exteriors I’ve ever seen on a building. It’s difficult to wrap my brain around how this all connects and is one building.”
Louise goes on to say that she likes the interior of the building but is perplexed by the outside.
Referring to the front of the building, she continues: “…This is the most confusing wall I’ve ever seen.
“What are these? Are these alcoves off the hallway? Can you step into them and look out the window?
“Why is one of the windows obscured by what I would describe ‘haphazard-looking wooden sticks? But they’re not haphazard; they were placed there with very careful thought because they all match, why?
“Other questions: Why is every alcove the same shape? What is that shape? Are those stairs? How big are those windows? Why are they all different depths?”
In the clip, which she shared with her 188.4k followers, Louisa appears baffled by the building’s design and questions why the alcove windows have been placed there.
Louisa’s critic gained more than 47,000 likes and over 1,400 comments from followers – including Scots who agreed.
@locke1010 said: “As a Scottish person it’s all CHAOS.”
@maudin_hues wrote: “It perplexed most of us tbh. The project was woefully mismanaged, delivered three years late at around 10x the original budget.
“The architect also died way before it was completed. The interior is beautiful though.”
@angelzit added: “To understand the ScotParl building you have to understand that it is literally surrounded by very old traditional buildings in Edinburgh so the architects went kinda nuts.
“Also yes those are stairways and there is bamboo…everywhere.”
@xaler666 wrote: “The outside looks like either a broken down factory or a kid messing on Sims.”
And TikTok user @Ambrosedystopian joked: “By the way, you’re talking about a country whose national animal is a unicorn.”
The Scottish Parliament website describes their building as: “Constructed from a mixture of steel, oak, and granite, the complex building was hailed on opening as one of the most innovative designs in Britain today.”
They continue: “Drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape, the flower paintings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the upturned boats on the seashore, Enric Miralles, one of the world’s premier architects, developed a design that he said was a building ‘growing out of the land’.”
The controversial building was initially scheduled to open in 2001 but following delays was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 9 October 2004.
The estimated final cost of the building was £414m – drastically higher than the initial estimates of £10-40m.
The Scottish Parliament said today on Twitter: “Lauren is right to say that the design of a parliament often says something about their country.
“Enric Miralles, the architect of the Scottish Parliament, drew inspiration from the landscape, flower paintings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the upturned boats on the seashore.”
Continuing: “The alcoves in Lauren’s TikTok are part of each MSPs’ office. These alcoves were designed by Miralles as a ‘contemplation space’. Inside MSPs can use this as a window seat and for shelving.”
Finally adding: “Sadly, Enric Miralles passed away before construction of the Parliament was completed, so while certain elements of his design are deliberately ambiguous, others have never been fully explained.”
