The following is the full text of the address delivered by David F. Wilson at the Scottish Parliament on 18 February 2026.
Over the last 18 months a group of us, some are here in the room tonight. An initiative whose aims is to bring natural stone back into public awareness.
I’d like to begin by thanking Joe FitzPatrick MSP for hosting us here this evening, and for his support in bringing this conversation into the Scottish Parliament.
I want to start with a quote from a well-known song — I’ll resist the temptation to sing it!
“You may say I’m a dreamer — but I’m not the only one.”
That line captures something fundamental about the ‘why’ of the Festival.
John Lennon was inviting people to see the world differently. I can probably say with some confidence that he didn’t have stone anywhere in his mind when he wrote it — but I do.
We extend an invitation for you to share our dream. One where natural stone once again plays an important and meaningful place in our towns and cities.
New conversations are emerging about how we build, and the materials we choose. At the same time, new technologies are opening up possibilities that allow us to combine traditional materials with contemporary ways of designing and making, raising important questions about quality, longevity, and human experience.
Over the last decade in particular, thinking around natural stone has changed markedly, not just here, but internationally. People are reconsidering how material choices relate to climate responsibility, sustainability, skills, and, perhaps most importantly, to the quality of human-centred public space.
This is not nostalgia, or a longing for how things used to be. Yes, we should care and protect what we have inherited. But we also have a responsibility to carry ambition forward. To nurture talent, …encourage creativity, ….increase material knowledge,…. and improve skills.
So that what we create today carries cultural, and social meaning for those who come after us.
We are at a point in time where we need to pause & consider – is what we are creating today fit for purpose tomorrow?
—-
Why does stone matter to me?
I came to stone through my work as a public artist. A practice rooted in a concern for our shared spaces. Over the past thirty-eight years I’ve designed a wide range of projects, many of them using stone. I was drawn to it initially for practical reasons. …Durability, …longevity, ..and its ability to weather time with dignity. It has become my passion.
Perhaps that is not surprising. Scotland is, quite literally, made of stone. It carries thousands of years of embedded knowledge. In its landscapes, its buildings, and crucially in the skills that have shaped our nation. Stone is not just a material here; it is part of our country’s cultural fabric.
Sadly, my career has coincided with a decline in the stone sector that began after the First World War and accelerated post-1945, resulting in weakened traditions and lost skills.
I think it is fair to say that the future of stone and its working is far from secure.
My own practice has always sat somewhere between art and craft . Two fields often framed as being in tension. I have often felt like a maverick: Not fully of the art world, and not fully within a defined craft tradition either. Yet the evidence all around us in Scotland shows that craft and creativity once thrived together.
That raises a difficult question. Are we really the generation that allows that legacy, one that took centuries to build, to quietly fade away?
An artist’s career is rarely smooth, that has certainly been true for me. But I feel deeply fortunate to have had stone as such a central part of my life. What conditions do we need to put in place to ensure that knowledge, creativity, and responsibility are carried forward, rather than slowly disappearing?
I’ve spent many long hours moving, building, shaping, carving, and polishing stone. Those hours give you plenty of time to dream. To ponder the simple question: can this loss be reversed?
In 2016, I was awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to research the contemporary use of stone in urban spaces in the USA and Canada. I found that while stone was not disappearing, it had evolved, with new ideas being explored in exciting ways.
The aesthetic appeal of stone remains strong. But it is also painful at times to witness growing material illiteracy. The weakening of the deep skills that allow stone to be used confidently and well.
That quality point matters. Stone does not become meaningful simply by existing.
John Ruskin understood this well. Stone’s benefits do not lie simply in utility. He urged us to build not for present use alone, and with the knowledge that a time will come when others will look upon what we made and say,
“SEE- This …they did for us.”
That idea still matters. It reframes stone working as an act of care, stewardship, and belief in the future. A generous act of paying it forwards. Scotland proves this in abundance.
The International Festival of Stone and the thinking behind it, is therefore two-stranded. On one level, it is about bringing into public awareness the very real challenges facing the sector. A system that was once strong and robust is now fragile, vulnerability is now an increasing challenge.
We should not be solely looking backwards. There is great potential looking forwards. We have a window of opportunity to reassert clearly and confidently that stone is not old-fashioned or obsolete. To say clearly, stone still matters today.
What comes next is about how we choose to build, repair, and reimagine our towns and cities. We believe a renewed appreciation of stone, has the power to shape a better future.
In developing the International Festival of Stone, we have spoken to a wide range of people across many sectors and public bodies. One assumption comes up again and again: that stone is a niche concern. I would strongly argue the opposite.
Stone sits at the intersection of many pressing issues causing concern.
Issues that are often considered separately, with limited awareness of how closely they are connected.
It speaks directly to how we care for our built environment. It underpins our ability to repair and retrofit existing buildings responsibly. It forces us to confront material choices head-on. Few people would claim to have fallen in love with a breeze-block wall. This proves materials matter, not just technically, but emotionally and culturally.
From a climate perspective, concrete and steel contribute significantly to CO₂ emissions, while stone offers a durable, low-carbon alternative, making its intelligent use a practical contribution to climate targets.
But stone is not only about carbon and construction. It is also about culture, identity, and belonging.
The quality of the spaces in which people live their daily lives is anything but niche .
The Centre for Social Justice report, Lonely Nation points directly to the quality of the built environment. Linking poor quality places to real social harms comparable to smoking, obesity, and lack of physical activity.
In that context, placemaking is not a secondary issue. It is central to wellbeing. The design, care, and maintenance of the public realm, plays a powerful role in whether people feel a sense of belonging or isolation.
Craft, material quality, and attention to detail are not cosmetic extras. They are signals. They communicate care, permanence, and human presence.
Stone work sits at the meeting point of making and meaning. It brings together skilled labour, creativity, cultural expression, and long-term stewardship. When these qualities are visible and valued, they support not only economic activity, but social cohesion and community wellbeing.
—-
Early in my career. At a point when I had no clear sense of where I was going, I dragged my heavily pregnant wife around Barcelona. It was early spring, one afternoon we visited Park Güell.
We sat in the central area, on its world-famous curving tiled bench. Families were out enjoying the day. Children were playing. People were connected,…facilitated by the specialness of the space.
It was a formative experience for me. What stood out was that this place existed for one reason only. To allow people to experience joy, and belonging in a shared public setting.
That moment has stayed with me as a guiding principle.
—
At this point, it is important to be clear about the problem we are trying to solve.
The economic and social model that has underpinned our high streets for much of the late twentieth century has changed fundamentally. Online retail has transformed behaviour in the same way that, …video killed the radio star.
The shopping-led centre is no longer sufficient on its own to sustain place, identity, and social life.
While some major centres may still be busy, the deeper question remains: what are our town and city centres for in an age where retail patterns, working life, and social behaviour have all shifted?
We are beginning to see regeneration strategies and masterplans being developed that seek to make places more social, more resilient, and more meaningful in people’s daily lives.
Yet in many of these consultations, material choice is treated as secondary. Or not considered at all. Specified materials are often imported, and poorly suited to climate or context. From a stone lover’s perspective, this is a serious oversight.
I live in Perth. Recently the council held a consultation event on concepts for how the city could develop in the next few decades. I asked one simple question: where does stone fit into your thinking?
The response was telling. It was not on their radar. Not as a design principle, not as a material strategy, not as a cultural asset. For a Scottish city predominantly built of stone, this is astonishing. I’m sure Perth is not unique in this lack of foresight.
For a sustainable future, material coherence must be integral from the start. Stone should not be an afterthought but regarded alongside purpose, form, and public experience.
—-
Across many countries, there is a growing reaction to the loss of character, material richness, and human scale in the built environment. A simple question is being asked: are we producing places that feel grounded, durable, and encourage human flourishing?
One of the most significant changes beyond the materials we build with. Is how collaboration itself has shifted.
Historically, architecture and the built environment were the product of what might be described as collective intelligence: architects, craftspeople, suppliers, engineers, all working in close dialogue. Over time, that balance has changed. Decision-making has become more top-down and increasingly abstracted from material reality, with some disciplines sidelined almost completely.
The result is not better buildings, but weaker ones, technically, culturally, and socially.
In the post-war period, the development of the New Towns represented a bold and necessary response to housing need and social change. Alongside that ambition came a recognition. Sometimes explicit, sometimes instinctive. That something was missing.
Architecture and planning often struggled to generate a sense of human connection. One response was to introduce public art as a corrective. Creativity was allowed, even encouraged, but as a late addition rather than as an integrated component.
What that period revealed was a genuine desire from artists to be keenly involved in placemaking.
I work within that tradition. I’m grateful for it. But I also recognise its limits. The opportunities missed, when creativity is treated as something applied, rather than embedded in wider processes.
Some of you may be aware of calls for what is described as a new aesthetic — a growing desire for a cultural movement expressed through architecture, urban planning, craft, and art. One that responds to climate realities, social wellbeing, and a desire for buildings and spaces that feel grounded, human, durable, and meaningful.
Past movements have had enormous cultural impact. But often driven more by theory than material reality. Much like the tech mantra of “break things and move fast” — the negative consequences we are left with were never considered.
We should learn from that.
Our contention is that if a new movement is to emerge meaningfully, creativity must sit alongside material knowledge from the outset. The International Festival of Stone is founded on that principle: as a catalytic force that encourages new thinking, grounded in making as learning, and joy in process.
Scotland has a particular opportunity here. We have deep material traditions. A strong creative culture, internationally respected education and heritage sectors, and a growing need to rethink how our towns, cities, and buildings function.
By reconnecting creativity, craft, and design with material understanding. We can help shape not just the debate, but hone a practical and exportable model for the future of the built environment.
At its heart, the Festival is designed to bring those who imagine our built environment and those who physically make it into the same city, at the same time. Not to talk past one another, but to interact with each other, deliberately and visibly.
The ambition of IFS27 is also to offer a creative space in which the next generation is invited to step forward. A space that inspires, challenges assumptions, and opens eyes to the possibilities that a confident, forward-facing relationship with stone and material understanding can offer.
For that ambition to mean anything in practice, we also need to address how we work together. If stone is to regain its relevance within the built environment, collaboration across disciplines is an essential step toward repair.
The challenges we face now — climate adaptation, retrofit, skills shortages, and town-centre renewal — are too complex to be solved by any single discipline. They require shared vision, understanding, mutual respect, and collaboration across the entire chain of making. We need to create conditions in which material knowledge, creative thinking, and practical experience inform design from the outset.
The International Festival of Stone is intended to help create the conditions in which that culture of collaboration can be rebuilt.
—-
Scotland has form when it comes to seeing the world differently.
Scottish geologist James Hutton recognised that the earth was not ordered in neat layers of time. That older geology could appear above younger formations. His insight fundamentally changed how we understand deep time, complexity, and process.
What matters here is not geology itself, but how understanding emerged. Through observation, patience, and close attention to material reality.
We see a similar pattern in creative practice. Andy Goldsworthy’s work is a poetic exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world. Grounded in making, experimentation, and deep respect for matter. During my travels, someone coined a phrase that really resonates “art saved the craft.” It perfectly captures the importance of inspiration and ambition.
These moments are connected. They remind us that progress does not always come from abstraction or hierarchy, but from caring, making, and understanding.
We are living through a transitional period. What we are proposing through IFS27 sits within a much longer historical arc. Periods where imagination, making, and material understanding were allowed back to the table.
The Renaissance did not simply appear. It emerged as a response to what had gone before. Baroque too, gave us extraordinary richness, but led to excess. Modernism emerged as a corrective. Stripping back, simplifying. Prioritising, abstraction, and efficiency over human experience.
Perhaps that correction was necessary. Over time, it became the dominating orthodoxy.
Modernism’s negative consequences gave us buildings that have lost their connection to place, craft, and human scale. This has left us with environments that are bland, disposable, and actively hostile to human flourishing. It has increasingly lost favour with the public.
What we are experiencing now feels like a turning point. Not a wholesale rejection of modernism, but a response to its limits.
The International Festival of Stone is not calling for a return to the past, but has the ambition to create energy from which the next phase may possibly emerge.
Transitions do not happen quickly. They unfold over time. They begin when people recognise that an existing model has run its course. A feeling that something more relevant to societies present needs is possible.
—-
I began with a line from Imagine. I’ll finish with another.
“It’s easy if you try.”
We are under no illusions. This will not be easy. Rebuilding skills, reconnecting sectors, and reshaping how we make places that genuinely support human flourishing will take time, effort, and sustained commitment.
My late father used to say to me, ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’ Stone has given me a life filled with challenges, but also deep satisfaction in trying to do the job well. If we can make it even a little easier for those who follow, then the effort is worth it.
The things that truly matter have never come from the easy option.
Our relationship with stone, with making, and with meaning is not finished.What we choose to do next will say a great deal about the future we believe in……..Thank you.
David F Wilson
Founder of IFS27 – Director of Creative Possibilities