Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

The Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, is a building which, together with the adjacent Royal Museum 12, comprises the National Museum of Scotland. It is dedicated to the history, people and culture of Scotland. The museum is on Chambers Street, in central Edinburgh. It is part of the National Museums of Scotland. Admission is free.

Opened in 1998, incorporating collections from the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland and Scottish items from the Royal Museum 12, the museum possesses a distinctive look.

Collections

Notable artefacts include:

• Sculptures by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, housing prehistoric jewellery
• The Monymusk Reliquary
• 10 of the Lewis chessmen. (The rest are owned by the British Museum)
• A Union Flag and Scottish Flag raised by the Hanovarians and Jacobite respectively at the Battle of Culloden
• Paintings by Margaret MacDonald
• Sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy, inspired by the work of Scottish geologist James Hutton

Architecture

The building's architecture was controversial from the start, and Prince Charles resigned as patron of the museum, in protest at the lack of consultation over its design. Initially conceived as an extension to the adjacent Victorian museum, it eventually came to be a museum in its own right, although the two are linked internally.

The museum is a comprised of geometric, Corbusian forms, but also has numerous references to Scotland, such as brochs and castellated, defensive, architecture. It is clad in golden Moray sandstone, which one of its architects, Gordon Benson, has called "the oldest exhibit in the building", a reference to Scottish geology. The building was a 1999 Stirling Prize nominee.