British architect and fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. During his Continental tour from 1853 to 1855, he met the Victorian artist Frederic Leighton (1830–1896) in Rome, who introduced him to the British architect William Burges (1827–1881). With both, Aitchison maintained a close friendship throughout his life.
It was Leighton who provided Aitchison with one of his most important commissions: the construction and subsequent extension of Leighton House in Holland Park Road in Kensington (London) between 1865 and 1895. In the Studio extension (1869–1870) and the Arab Hall extension (1877–1881), Aitchison integrated a total of thirteen replicas of stucco and glass windows (see IG_50–IG_59). Like Leighton and Burges, Aitchison travelled the Islamic world, where he studied stucco and glass windows, among other things (Purdon Clarke, & Hayter Lewis, 1881, pp. 173–174; Aitchison, 1904, pp. 56–57).

Aitchison, G. (1904). Coloured Glass. The Architectural Journal XI(3), pp. 53–65.

Purdon Clarke, C., & Hayter Lewis, T. (1881). Persian Architecture and Construction. Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Session 1880–1881 (pp. 161–174). London: Royal Institute of British Architects.