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Dovecot is a landmark centre for contemporary craft and design with a specialist tapestry studio at its heart. The Dovecot building is a multi-disciplinary art and event space, sensitively converted from a Victorian Swimming Pool in Edinburgh's Old Town. 2012 is Dovecot's 100 Centenary year.[

Dovecot Studios were originally founded in 1912 by the Marquess of Bute, a patron of the arts. The first weavers came from William Morris’s Merton Abbey workshop and the first commission was for a series of monumental tapestries for the Marquess’s own home at Mount Stuart on the island of Bute.

Dovecot Studios has constantly evolved since it was established before the Great War. Initial Arts and Crafts ideals developed into a more proactive engagement with modernism from the 1950s, when designs came from leading British artists such as Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Stanley Spencer, Cecil Beaton and John Piper. In the 1960s international ambition partnered a quest for experimentation, as characterised by collaborations with artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, David Hockney, Robert Motherwell and Louise Nevelson.

Working in partnership with the finest innovative artists and makers has been, and actively remains, key to Dovecot's unique position. The intuitive sense of design and colour has been richly matched by the imagination and skills of the Dovecot weavers. Dovecot’s influence continues today and has extended to workshops as far apart as the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne and Pangnirtung Tapestry Studios on Baffin Island. Dovecot tapestries are to be found in private and international museum collections worldwide including: the Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Library, Vancouver Art Gallery and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The largest tapestry ever to have been woven in the UK hangs in The British Library in London. It was created by Dovecot weavers in collaboration with the artist R B Kitaj.

The studio has a long association with corporate patrons. For example, Donald Kendal, Pepsico Chairman, commissioned tapestries designed by Frank Stella for the company’s head office in Purchase, New York. Companies including IBM and BP, Standard Life, Pearson Group and Glenfiddich have also commissioned tapestries for their head office.

Dovecot Studios were re-established in 2001 with the financial support and backing of Elizabeth and Alastair Salvesen. Under the direction of David Weir, Dovecot’s weavers continue to work to commission, producing tapestry and tufted rugs for private and public collections.

In 2008 Dovecot completed a £12million refurbishment of Edinburgh’s oldest public baths into workshop and gallery spaces. The new building is also home to the Dovecot Foundation which supports the work of the studios and a programme of cross-discipline exhibitions and events.