Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (1834-1921)
Sir Robert Rowand Anderson (1834-1921) was a Scottish architect who designed the McEwan Hall and Medical School.
The architect Robert Rowand Anderson was born in Forres in 1834. Anderson had four years of legal training, and then while serving with the Royal Engineers he studied construction and design. He then entered the Architectural Section of the Trustees Academy School of Art, and before setting up in practice in Edinburgh, around 1875, he spent a year in continental travel. His practice was very successful and his output was large. Besides his work for Edinburgh University, he designed the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (and Museum of Antiquities), Edinburgh, the Montrose Memorial within the High Kirk of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and Central Station Hotel, Glasgow. Anderson was knighted in 1902 and he was the first President of the Scottish Institute of Architects. He also founded the School of Applied Art in 1892, one of the forerunner bodies of Edinburgh College of Art. Already holding the majority of architect William Playfair's drawings and many office letters of Robert Lorimer, some of the historic drawings of Rowand Anderson, Kininmonth and Paul came to Edinburgh University Library in 1976.