(b Dunfermline, Fife, May 25, 1770; d Edinburgh, Oct 9, 1813). Scottish architect and urban planner. He was the son of a manufacturer and by 1798 he was living in St Petersburg, which then offered a more comprehensive view of European Neo-classical architecture than was possible from Scotland. By 1804 he had settled in Glasgow, his design for the Hunterian Museum (destr.) at the Old College, Glasgow University, being preferred to that of David Hamilton, the leading Glasgow architect. Both designs were square in plan with central domed rotundas, but whereas Hamilton’s derived from late work of Robert Adam (i) and 18th-century French schemes, Stark’s was in a more avant-garde Neo-classical style with a finely detailed hexastyle Roman Doric portico similar to those of contemporary Russian and French projects. By contrast, his church of St George (1807–9), Buchanan Street, Glasgow, has a steeple of 18th-century Baroque character reminiscent of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s work but more probably Russian in inspiration. Equally individualistic was the highly simplified Gothic of his churches at Saline, Fife (...