Sepia Time & Blue Space

Raised in a family of sea-faring Glasgow Highlanders, Archie MacAlister’s love of stories began in boatyards and sail-lofts. Wartime years in Argyll broadened his horizons as he listened to grandparents and local worthies such as the shoemaker ‘with a mouthful of segs’. Others showed him the landscape of Diarmuid and Grainne, told him of ancient times, sang songs and handed on the traditional wisdom of the Gael. As a student of architecture in Edinburgh, he was drawn to Patrick Geddes’s interpretation of the environment and a ‘scholarship placement’ in Central Europe set him on his way to explore global culture.