Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The Smith Institute first opened to the public on 11 August 1874. It was an occasion for great celebration in Stirling, and the shops in the town closed at 12 noon to allow people to attend the opening. Nevertheless, there were some mixed feelings, for Thomas Stuart Smith, had died in 1869 and the location of the building was felt by many people to be too far away from the old town.
University of Stirling
Stirling was the first new university to be established in Scotland for nearly 400 years. The original site of the campus was selected from a shortlist of competing sites, which include Falkirk, Perth and Inverness. The author of the Robbins Review, which recommended an expansion of the number of universities in the UK during the 1960s, Lord Robbins, was appointed as the University's first Chancellor in 1968. In 1967 a house for the University Principal Tom Cottrell was completed, designed by architects Morris and Steedman. It was listed as category A in 2009.
The Pathfoot Building, which represented the first phase of development on the campus, was completed in 1968 and originally housed lecture theatres, offices and classrooms in addition to the iconic 'crush hall' where the university displayed its emerging collection of contemporary Scottish art. The building was extended in 1979 to include a Tropical Aquarium and again in 1987 to include a Virology Unit associated with the university's Institute of Aquaculture. In 1993, the Pathfoot Building was selected by the international conservation organisation DoCoMoMo as one of sixty key Scottish monuments of the post-war era. It was also voted as one of Prospect's 100 best modern Scottish buildings. In 1970, development began on what was subsequently named the Cottrell Building, in memory of the university's first principal Cottrell. It comprises two parallel buildings with cross link corridors and interspersed courtyard gardens. The building today houses most of the university administration, lecture theatres, departmental offices, classrooms and computer laboratories. The University Library, Atrium and MacRobert Centre are housed in an adjoining building, the Andrew Miller Building, which was completed in 1971.