John Lowrey is a senior lecturer in architectural history at Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), part of Edinburgh College of Art within Edinburgh University.  He has specialised in the study of classical architecture in Scotland and in the architectural history of Edinburgh. He is currently working on a new book exploring the topics of his lecture title. Tickets available from Eventbrite or on the door, subject to availability: £6 / students £2

Part of the Aberdeen Heritage Lectures 2026 collection. Natural stone has been a favoured building material since the early days of human habitation in Scotland, and is still in fashion for modern architecture. A rich and diverse legacy of building with stone has created the unique historic character of our towns, cities, monuments, places of worship and infrastructure. In Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire, the famous granite city has found its name and character in the stone bedrock on which it is founded. This lecture will be delivered by experts from the British Geological Survey (BGS), Dr Stephen Parry and Paul Everett. Aberdeen City Heritage Trust recognises the support of Historic Environment Scotland and Aberdeen City Council

Speakers: Dr David Mitchell, Director of Cultural Assets at Historic Environment Scotland and Diarmid Hearns, Head of Public Policy, Risk and Environment with the National Trust for Scotland. At the top of Patrick Geddes’ valley section are the hills: the scene of only sparse and temporary human habitation: shepherds, walkers, windmills and dams, shooting ranges and drives, forest. We often conceive of ‘nature’ as the opposite of ‘culture’ (be it urban or agriculture), but of course the hills, for all their apparent emptiness, are as tightly managed and as man-made as any city street. Nature is, in itself, a cultural construct. As such, it has heritage all of its own – histories of farming, walking, imagining, and centuries of care. This session will consider what happens when these forms of conservation meet one another, and speculates upon what might, and could, happen.