Scottish Architecture

[Florentine_Pogen]

23 minutes ago, milton75 said:

 

If you look at the drawings for New Towns, and indeed for some of the high-rise complexes (including their associated shopping precincts etc.), you can get a sense of why they thought that these spaces would be something positive going forward. Open spaces, clean lines, defined zones... It is a shame that so much of this was misguided; it turns out that people do respond better to organic growth and mixed-use, and as a social experiment they do seem to have failed in the main. I don't have anything new to add to commentary on breaking apart communities that hasn't already been said 1000x before in any case.

WRT Le Corbusier, I think there's a practical issue to consider, and it's as basic as raw concrete looking better after 20 years in Marseille sun as opposed to in Lanarkshire rain. Using cheaper concrete didn't help of course.

Absolutely. Jane Jacobs book 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' is a good starting point if you are interested in town planning failures.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Florentine_Pogen

[coprolite]

Not Scottish as such, but in modern Scotland:

Mysterious in many ways. 

[red23]

a fine example of brutalist office architecture in the 70's

[Aim Here]

9 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Not Scottish as such, but in modern Scotland:

Mysterious in many ways. 

Ah, the brochs. As a kid in Shetland, I always very much enjoyed the more accessible, if less spectacular, Clickimin Broch, where you could play soldiers with your pals and there were wee tunnels to hide from incoming adults, in case they had a mind to enforce the 'no under 15s' rule that was on the gate as you go on.

Supposedly nobody knew knew this thing was sitting in a prominent jutting outcrop in a loch on the outskirts of Lerwick until archaeological digs in the mid 19th century.

[Glennie]

crime against humanity

 

 

[Ray Patterson]

8 hours ago, RiG said:

Marischal College in Aberdeen is pretty stunning although I think it looked better before they cleaned it up.



And I always loved the University of Aberdeen campus especially New Kings...



Conversely, the John Lewis building is utterly howling and the UoA Zoology building looks like something out of soviet Russia. It was apparently used in some Apple TV series about The Cold War 

Staying with Aberdeen Uni:

Always hated the MacRobert Building for a number of reasons - an ugly eye sore, that was at least a five minutes walk from the rest of uni and you'd have to walk round a car park and dodge traffic getting in there as the entrance was at the worst side of the building for anyone coming from the campus side.

On the other hand, there was the Ricecube Library which is a fantastic building that at night looked like you were walking up to the Jedi Temple from Star Wars - especially when the lamps outside where lit. Only issue is that the atrium is slightly too big for my liking and means it can be a pain getting a desk.

 

[Glennie]

18 hours ago, Tommy Carcetti said:

St Mary's episcopal cathedral, some of the detailed stuff is incredible.

gorgeous

[Florentine_Pogen]

Can't do pics atm but in my very humble opinion, one of the best new buildings in Scotland is the Macallan distillery and visitor centre.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

Can't do pics atm but in my very humble opinion, one of the best new buildings in Scotland is the Macallan distillery and visitor centre.

Has Bezos bought Macallan?

Does look good though..

Edited October 27, 2021 by welshbairn

[Cosmic Joe]

19 hours ago, Tommy Carcetti said:

St Mary's episcopal cathedral, some of the detailed stuff is incredible.

Another episcopal Church (big team found)5 minutes down the road from me, the quirky St Mark's.

You also can't do art deco in Edinburgh without mentioning the White House in Craigmillar.

 

Out of interest, I wonder who the Episcopalians big team actually are. 

Spartans? 

Brechin City? 

[pozbaird]

I’m old enough to remember driving past it in my youth, was always a favourite building of mine, it just looked like the future. Whoever allowed Renfrew Airport’s terminal to be demolished rather than be preserved, needs repeatedly booted in the stones.

 

 

 

[milton75]

2 hours ago, pozbaird said:

I’m old enough to remember driving past it in my youth, was always a favourite building of mine, it just looked like the future. Whoever allowed Renfrew Airport’s terminal to be demolished rather than be preserved, needs repeatedly booted in the stones.

 

 

 

Agree completely. Just saw this page that had a few other great photos:

And on the subject of Airports, whoever allowed them to vandalise the lines of Glasgow Airport should have been strung up.

 

 

 

[die hard doonhamer]

I really like the Pitheavlis building in Perth. Built in the 1980s as the headquarters of General Accident, it's now Aviva's largest Scottish office. It's built in to the side of the hill, and is covered in gardens. Inside there is wood paneling everywhere, and an impressive window in to the foundations on one of the lower floors. I worked there, up until fairly recently.

[tamthebam]

6 hours ago, ArabAuslander said:

Staying with Aberdeen Uni:

Always hated the MacRobert Building for a number of reasons - an ugly eye sore, that was at least a five minutes walk from the rest of uni and you'd have to walk round a car park and dodge traffic getting in there as the entrance was at the worst side of the building for anyone coming from the campus side.

On the other hand, there was the Ricecube Library which is a fantastic building that at night looked like you were walking up to the Jedi Temple from Star Wars - especially when the lamps outside where lit. Only issue is that the atrium is slightly too big for my liking and means it can be a pain getting a desk.

 

I hope that Borg Cube of a library is better built than its predecessor with its rattling floors.

[tamthebam]

10 hours ago, milton75 said:

Causewayside Garage in Edinburgh is also a treat.

 

And I drove past this place in Girvan recently. Could do with some TLC, but nice clean lines.

 

Causewayside Garage was designed by Sir Basil Spence, later known for more modernist buildings.

[invergowrie arab]

7 hours ago, scottsdad said:

A touch of vernacular earth construction at Cottown, Perthshire. 

Lots of cottages in the Carse of Gowrie still have roofs from the Errol Reed beds and are clad in clay from the Errol brickworks.

It's why Errol itself looks like it's falling down but I like it. 

[invergowrie arab]

The sheltered houses in Langshaw Road, Dryburgh in Dundee have always appealed to me.

The same architect did Kirkton Community and Ardler community centres. As weird as they look internally they are ad nothing to the Escher nightmare of their internal configurations 

 

[IrishBhoy]

This is a building that’s easily missed as you come out of Glasgow Central, but I always make a point of looking up at it as I pass. It deserves to house something of a higher standing than a Co-op. 

[Big Rider]

17 hours ago, milton75 said:

 

 

If I'm not entirely mistaken, the fannies at the MOD originally said they would build this on the site of the St Enoch Station and then changed their minds, but by that time the station had been demolished. I can't help feel that converting the below to a shopping centre (or anything) would have been preferable to the monstrosity that is the St Enoch Centre:

 

That colour photo is brilliant. 

[stevieKTID]

21 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

I know somebody who worked there - I'd heard that rumour too, but they said there's only the one basement level. Apparently the blast thing's correct though, and it's designed so any external blast would travel upwards and limit damage. A lot of the corridors supposedly have staggers in them the way WW1 trenches did for much the same reason.

Back to art deco, and the Luma tower out Govan/Cardonald Way that you always see from the motorway. Think it's flats now.

Caravanland!