{"id":3322,"date":"2022-04-08T16:44:11","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T15:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk\/dundeeuniculture\/?p=3322"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:46:46","slug":"then-and-now-changing-dundee-the-ewing-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/then-and-now-changing-dundee-the-ewing-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Then and now – changing Dundee: the Ewing Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another in our occasional series from Archive Services looking at how the city and University has changed. The Ewing Building on the corner of Small’s Wynd and Small’s Lane is a familiar sight on campus. While today it is very much in the middle of the campus, when work on it began in 1950 it marked a significant expansion to the north.<\/p>\n

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The Ewing Building in 1967<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prior to this time Small’s Wynd to the north of the University College campus had been a residential and industrial area. Even when the Ewing Building opened it was still surrounded by non-University buildings, with the Regal Cinema facing it across Small’s Wynd.<\/p>\n

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The Ewing Building in 1954<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0Ewing<\/span>\u00a0Building<\/span>‘s opening on 12th February 1954 was a significant event for what was then University College. It was the first major new building<\/span>\u00a0to be erected on its campus since the early years of the twentieth century and it foreshadowed a time of great expansion for what was soon to be renamed Queen’s College Dundee.<\/p>\n

The first tenants of the building were the departments of Botany and Electrical Engineering. It was appropriate that it should be named after\u00a0Sir James Alfred\u00a0Ewing<\/span>, as he had been one of the College’s original professors when teaching started in 1883, when he was aged 28. Born in Dundee, he had returned to the city to take the Chair of\u00a0Engineering & Drawing at UCD after working at the University of Tokyo.\u00a0 His father, the Reverend James\u00a0Ewing<\/span>, was a well-known Dundee minister.<\/p>\n

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Professor Ewing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The opening was performed by the Duke of Hamilton, chancellor of the University of St Andrews. Other guests included Dr Alfred, W. Ewing, the son of Sir James Alfred Ewing, and Dr Arthur Geddes, the son of Professor Patrick Geddes who had been the original holder of the Botany Chair.<\/p>\n

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The opening with Edith Philip Smith, the Duke of Hamilton and Garnet Wilson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next to the Ewing Building was the converted stable block which was used by the Biochemistry staff and students.<\/p>\n

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1950s plan of part of the campus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was from here that Dr R. P. Cook built up Biochemestry from a small part of the Physiology Department into one of the most successful departments in what would become the University of Dundee. Cook’s success led to Biochemistry moving to a purpose-built home in the Medical Sciences Institute which work started on 1967.\u00a0The old Biochemistry building later became known as the Ewing Annex and was latterly home to Disability Services. The building was demolished in 2013.<\/p>\n

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The Annex prior to demolition in 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Search for Then and now on the home page to see more posts from Archive Services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another in our occasional series from Archive Services looking at how the city and University has changed. The Ewing Building on the corner of Small’s Wynd and Small’s Lane is a familiar sight on campus. While today it is very much in the middle of the campus, when work on it began in 1950 it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":3328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-archives","category-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6239,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions\/6239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}