Editorial Comment
Scotland's secret 'A' listers
THE HUGE push for the redevelopment of towns and cities throughout Britain may be an indicator of economic prosperity (will it now slow down as the full folly of banking madness comes home?) with the result that many architectural landmarks of the early post-war years are under threat.
In London, the Chamberlin & Bon-designed Barbican estate that rose out of the rubble of the City may now be dwarfed by a proposed office tower in its midst that will also destroy many of its high walkways, while further to the south east, the blocks of flats known as Robin Hood Gardens designed by the Smithsons are scheduled for demolition.
However, in Edinburgh there is one victory: the A listed Royal Commmonwealth Pool has been saved from demolition by Linda Fabiani, one of whose responsibilities is Scottish architecture.
Fellow MSP Ian McKee had called upon the Minister to delist the building, which was designed by RJMJ in 1967, claiming that it was no longer fit for purpose as a venue for international swimming contests.
But in her letter rejecting his request, Ms Fabiani described the pool as a 'streamlined modernist structure of international renown' and announced that a two-year long, £37.5m refurbishment of the pool by S&P Architects will now go ahead.
Among the improvements will be rebuilding the main pool, extending a diving pool, enlarging another pool to make it more suitable for leisure activities, and refurbishing and expanding the gym area, fitness suites and changing rooms.
Ms Fabiani has also saved St Peter's Seminary in Cardross from demolition. A Le Corbusier-inspired design by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia that was built from 1956-66, it has long been abandoned - but never by ArtWork. However, as a new use still has to be found for the seminary, its long-term future remains uncertain.
How to regenerate the seminary is now facing Gareth Hoskins Architects, who have been commissioned to develop ideas for the use of the buildings.
They are the architects of the new visitors' centre in Culloden (see page 9 this issue).
We wish them the very best of luck.
Off the map, finally
THIS paper will shed few tears for the Scottish Arts Council as it lives out its last days before disappearing into the maws of Creative Scotland. By and large it has had a pretty thankless task to perform, always short of cash and the target for endless and often pretty unfair criticism.
Somewhat cruelly, it has to be said, we have looked on with amazement at the repeated and usually foolhardy attempts to defy the laws of publishing by throwing often largish sums of public money at ventures that never had the remotest chance of getting airborne. The ill-starred Map magazine (funding now withdrawn) being the last and probably the least conspicuous in a long line of almost invisible publications.
Now, it is revealed, the poorly performing booksfromscotland web operation is to have a whole lot more money thrown at it in the hope that it too can defy gravity.
The SAC never stopped trying.
Welcome to Haghill studios
ONCE UPON a time, film makers were enticed to Scotland because of the country's beautiful scenery (though it didn't prevent much of Braveheart being filmed in Eire, probably for tax reasons)
Now, with the threat of wind farms and power lines despoiling many of the finest views, Scottish Screen has a new idea: film in Scotland because of its dreary scenery.
As Belle Doyle, the organisation's location manager, says, "Scotland cannot afford to be sniffy about how it is presented to film makers."
So come to the land of scruffy shopping centres, run-down tower blocks and spectacularly ugly inner-city wasteland.
Locations include Greenock Prison, the centre of Cumbernauld, Rosyth Docks and East Kilbride.
And an example of how this new approach is working is the use of parts of Glasgow for the new sci-fi thriller, Domesday, that stars Bob Hoskins and Malcolm MacDowall.
Set 20 years in the future, when everyone has died because of the plague, the film makers wanted a street that looked as if it hadn't been inhabited for decades so chose a location in Haghill.
And can you believe it, there was a time when people came north because 'Glasgow's Miles Better!'
Thank you, and good night
HAS THE massive con of 'New' Labour finally been exposed? After the disastrous English and Welsh local elections it rather looks as though it has.
And what is the reaction of oh-so-prudent Gordon? A bit of fiddling here, a bit of tinkering there. One measure to please the Daily Mail, another to please The Sun.
We put up with the increasing embarassment of the Blairs because a radical Labour dawn was supposed to follow them when Brown moved next door to No 10.
We now know that if anything Gordon Brown is even more timid and reactionary than Tony Blair.
Take the suicidal insistence on the 42 day detention without trial in the face of absolutely no evidence that it was needed - so plainly an attempt by a weak leader to bolster his authority by appealing to the dark forces of security.
No one was impressed.
Meanwhile ticking away in the background is the time bomb of the public finance initiative, designed to create havoc with public finances when the exorbitant finance charges start to hit home.
By then Gordon should be well away from the levers of power - he will just have to hope that he has been able to secure some rewards from the fat cats he pandered to.
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