'Ugly, unloved and an environmental drain, but Brutalist Argyle House is worth saving'
Award-winning architect Malcolm Fraser makes the case against ripping it up and starting again
Standing defiantly at the foot of Castle Rock, Argyle House makes for a stark contrast with the city’s most famous historical landmark.
Built in the late 1960s, it is big, grey, angular and austere – a classic example of post-war brutalist architecture.
Its no-frills, geometric concrete structure has made it a movie star, appearing in the Netflix series Dept Q and a film adaptation of the Irvine Welsh book Crime. But the 11-storey complex, formerly home to government offices, has also come last in beauty contests, having been informally crowned Edinburgh’s ugliest building.
It certainly divides opinion.
Now its future is in the balance. Developers want to knock it down and build a new multi-use complex that would include a hotel, residential apartments, offices and commercial premises.
Many people might be glad to see it go, but there is also a committed band of campaigners who are desperate to halt the plans.
The developers, represented by property agency CBRE, see an opportunity to reinvent a part of the city centre which remains a little run down and in parts - there is no other word for it- seedy.
“At present, the site is taken up by an outdated building which presents as a large, austere, slab-like structure with long façades, obscuring some superb views of the Castle and offering little to its surrounding neighbours,” says CBRE. “Redevelopment creates the chance to open the site up and give back to the city – by introducing new routes, connections and spaces through and within what is currently a closed site, through townscape repair and reinstating historic building lines. It also offers an opportunity to deliver much-needed new homes, including affordable housing provision.”
So why should a building often voted Edinburgh’s ugliest be saved from demolition?
‘Airbrushing cultural history’
Edinburgh architect Malcolm Fraser, co-founder of Fraser/Livingstone Architects, is among those lobbying to save Argyle House.
The award-winning architect - whose impressive work includes social housing in the Capital and some of the Old Town’s most beautiful modern buildings, the Scottish Poetry Library, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, DanceBase and Dovecot Studios - has more than one argument for keeping it.
Firstly, it’s one of the best surviving examples of its style left in Edinburgh. Others include the high-rise Banana Flats, at Cables Wynd in Leith and Westfield Court in Gorgie, as well as Edinburgh University’s library in George Square and the nearby Pollock Halls of Residence.
“We are currently experiencing a sort of airbrushing out of our cultural history in terms of the modernist architecture of the second half of the 20th century,” he says.
“When I was young, starting out as an architect, there was still the remnant of a general hatred of Victorian buildings. It was kind of understood by the culture that they were lousy, unusable, unconvertible, a style that had passed its sell-by date. They were to be torn down and replaced.
“We think very differently now. They are considered well-built, sturdy and adaptable, and contain wonderful, sophisticated craft skills from masons, joiners and others.
“Really that’s the same for some of the architecture of the second half of the 20th century. Yes, some is poor, and I think it’s important to be critical looking back at any building. Is it useful? Is it sturdy? Does it add to the beauty of the city, even in a stern, austere way?
“The description many people have given pejoratively of Argyle House as a ‘great grey slab’ could also refer to the castle or most of our tenements. The Georgian New Town is a series of great grey slabs.
“So Argyle house is not unprecedented in the context of Edinburgh, and it does represent the best of a style that valued solidity, mass, simplicity – which are absolutely key elements of Scottish architecture that you can see being repeated from the brochs to the present day.
“But the fact that I’m in this mid-sized city and I’m having to dig deep to find remaining examples of buildings from that era just represents how important it is.
“I’m not saying we should keep everything – there are buildings that are poor and need demolished – but Argyle House is sturdy. It is useful. And it is one of the best pieces of brutalist heritage we have left.”
‘Striking concrete artwork’
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