Object
The New Museums Site Development Framework Supplementary Planning Document (SPD)
Representation ID: 30720
Received: 04/09/2015
Respondent: The Rt Hon Alex Fergusson
I wish to strongly object to the plans to partially demolish the Cavendish Laboratory. As someone who has tried to champion the life, works and achievements of James Clerk Maxwell, whose family estate lies within my Scottish Parliamentary constituency of Galloway and West Dumfries within which he is buried, I believe that he is one of the most understated geniuses in our history. He designed the Cavendish Laboratory and was its first head, and it was under his leadership that the Cavendish spawned what a recent article called 'one of the greatest crop of experimental scientists the world has known'.
This building simply must be preserved. As others have pointed out, "Elsewhere historically insignificant buildings are being kept for no good reason, yet there is perhaps no other scientific building in this country as important as the original Cavendish, perhaps no laboratory as aesthetically pleasing as the Mond. If the university truly wishes to 'create a window into the site's history' they must do it without destroying its most important buildings".
I whole-heartedly concur.
I wish to strongly object to the plans to partially demolish the Cavendish Laboratory. As someone who has tried to champion the life, works and achievements of James Clerk Maxwell, whose family estate lies within my Scottish Parliamentary constituency of Galloway and West Dumfries within which he is buried, I believe that he is one of the most understated geniuses in our history. He designed the Cavendish Laboratory and was its first head, and it was under his leadership that the Cavendish spawned what a recent article called 'one of the greatest crop of experimental scientists the world has known'.
This building simply must be preserved. As others have pointed out, "Elsewhere historically insignificant buildings are being kept for no good reason, yet there is perhaps no other scientific building in this country as important as the original Cavendish, perhaps no laboratory as aesthetically pleasing as the Mond. If the university truly wishes to 'create a window into the site's history' they must do it without destroying its most important buildings".
I whole-heartedly concur.