hello again - we have some more exciting brutalism-related news to share! zitozza are proud to be involved with a new exhibition, part of a wider series of events called concrete designs to thrive, exploring how good design can keep a city can fit and well, curated by journeys in design - with city walks, talks, workshops and exhibitions.
you can join the glasgow green and grey walks - sunday strolls around one of glasgow’s favourite parklands, to spaces and places with fascinating heritage, talking en route about thriving in the city (this walk was developed and delivered in 2023 with the help of a small group of guides with experience of homelessness); 2-4pm sundays 16th and 23rd.
we’re thrilled to be a part of the materials and modernism exhibition featuring the work of five scottish creatives, all inspired by modernist architecture, offering key works in mosaic, wood, ceramic, cast concrete and printed textile (that’s zitozza!); open 10am to 4pm monday to friday at the briggait in glasgow, from 12th - 27th june - please do come and visit!
part of this is also design for a city, fit and well- the latest in a series of twilight talks, when an expert panel presents the case for retrofit rather than wrecking ball, remodelling, repurposing, and reclaiming for the better. Extra time and refreshments will enhance the chance for good connection on the evening of thursday 20th june at the briggait.
finally, a call out to help craft healthy city, healthy citizen ‘zines in a set of wednesday workshops at the briggait, exploring well-being and urban design in ‘zine format, to include use of printed smart phone pics captured by our walk participants, posted using the hashtag #concretescotland, 2-4pm wednesdays 12th 19th and 26th june.
journeys in design founder dr john ennis said, “it’s a privilege to bring our concrete designs to thrive to the heart of glasgow in 2024 and to collaborate with such a diverse array of designers, artists and producers around glasgow green and the briggait: it’s very clear why this park and this venue are such treasured parts of the city’s culture.”
hello again, believe it or not, it’s been another month and a very, very long time since we posted anything architectural or photographic - things have been busy but actually, we needn’t always go on a long, exotic journey to find some good, inspiring facades. for this short little trip, we’re staying in edinburgh today to look at another student accommodation.
the building is at 8 roxburgh place (on the corner of west adam place), you can get to it by walking up the stairs behind the dovecot (this is very specific but if you’re a brutalist textile lover, it’s a highly recommended double trip to the textile studios as well as this concrete monster!)
the building belongs to the university of edinburgh and i can’t for the love of my life find the architect! if anyone knows, do reach out. i’m guessing it was built in the 1960s and recently renovated. by all accounts it is rated highly among students, mainly for the excellent location and the stunning views of the city, and i have zero doubt it’s an absolutely brilliant experience to stay there for your studies.
this is a textile design blog though, so as usual, we’re here for the patterns and the facade does not disappoint. it’s only five floors tall so it’s not an imposing monstrosity at all, and the human scale is made evident by the large window panels and the even facade - all floors are the same height, there is not a grand entrance or an all important ground floor, the seamless repeat of windows start immediately off the ground.
the near-square shaped windows sit in rounded rectangles with some relief details above them and it makes me imagine it inside in the style of futuristic space capsules. this panelling continues on all elevations, even without windows, the details are there, which is quite obviously a pleasing sight to the pattern lovers.
there is a bit of an extrusion on the front side, and due to that, it looks like there is a bit of an offset to the grid of windows, which breaks the monotony a bit and brings some excitement to the facade. i enjoyed walking around here - there is another lovely brutalist gem right across it, a university teaching centre recently renovated by reiach and hall. surrounded by the medieval churches of old edinburgh, they don’t look out of place at all in this living, breathing city.
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if you came here looking for ideas for your student accommodation, come and browse our shop!
it’s been a while since we made a blog post about anything happening at the studio, because, well, it is a well oiled machine now of things getting designed, printed block by block, then made up and sold… but even with our modular system and infinite possibilities, it’s good to refresh things from time to time and add new ingredients to the well-liked recipes. so we’re working on a brand new tileset - see a little glimpse below!
we’ll be working on some brand new prints with these in the coming months - of course, these tiles will be part of our MODERN collection, not just creating a beautiful collection on their own but working well with more than a hundred of others, extending the possibilities for ever more varied patterns.
if you’re interested in anything bespoke, please do get in touch, we’d be delighted to hear about your project and print fabrics for your interior schemes.
if you got curious about our new stuff - just bear with us while we are putting them together please, you can be sure they’ll arrive in beautiful, bold colours and our signature architectural style! do watch this space…!
it’s february again… and it seems to be a particularly grey one, but that just makes it perfect time to read about decorating trends, colours, patterns and all the fun stuff. and, as we do it now every year, we’ve collected the main trends to focus on so do join us on a trip into the hottest new interior trends.
1. bOLD colours and brave combos
at zitozza, we have been waiting for this moment for a looong time, but even for the minimalists, it’s probably a good time to say goodbye to the all-beige aesthetic and the grey everything. in the mid-2020s, we are in desperate need for mood-boosting colours and the stranger, and more eye-catching, the better. close the itten book, there are no rules, more is more - we’re getting ready to make some bold, wild prints on new interior fabrics and we cannot wait.
2. hand crafted statement pieces
we have discussed this before - sustainability is not a trend, but an imperative for all industries now, as it should be. for sure, sustainable design processes and practices can be interpreted in many interesting ways and many are slowly seeping into interior trends. one that’s here to stay is how the luxury statement pieces now mean the high-quality, handmade objects made by artisans. exquisite hand crafted details, small imperfections, material honesty - what’s not to love and do we have the rugs for you!
3. luxury gezelligheid
this one is an entirely biased inclusion in the list since zitozza are dutch lovers, but that thing that house beautiful calls “cosy, quiet luxury” and those “real and memorable spaces” dezeen refers to - the dutch have a word for it and if you ever went through a bit of a hygge phase, you need to learn to say gezellig.
it means so much more than cosy - it is a social and friendly kind of contentness. in the home, it may express itself in the shape of ambient lighting (think about our jute lampshades!), warm, tactile textures (think of layers of rugs on the floor!), and open, inviting, sociable spaces ready to be filled with warm conversations. naturally, this means high quality, long-lasting materials and finishes as time well spent is the real luxury now!
4. BROWN (FOR real!)
no, it is not the 1970s anymore, don’t worry. that kind of brown is not making a new comeback. this is a grown-up version, evolved from the earth tone trends we’ve seen in the last few years. at zitozza, we’re particular fans of the almost-black kind of espresso browns, and elle decor mentions chocolate hues, but if that’s not your thing, woods and finishes such as shou sugi ban may bring that tone in your home by more natural means.
5. stripes and checks
nothing we love more than patterns, of course and we’re so glad seeing them mentioned by vogue.horizontal or vertical, or have them clash and make a chequerboard - that’s right up our alley as our modular system of printing blocks can make up similar effects with that unique hand crafted appeal and we cannot wait to bring more of these prints to life - stay tuned!
6. mix and match
as we are all about tactile prints, we do always embrace a version of this kind of trend, but this year it really means a mix and match of all sorts of surfaces and patterns. textured walls are definitely a thing this year but it means a play with hard finishes - metals such silver and gold accents (and yes, stainless steel!) but also, of course, mixing coarse textiles (such as jute) with some soft linens too. exciting times!
if you’re ready to find something for your home, have a browse through our shop or request a sample to see what we’re able to do for your home!
below the articles we sourced these from are linked for further reading, and if you want to be the first to read about sustainable home decor and textiles, subscribe below (it comes with a freebie every month!)
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links:
12 interior design trends we’ll see in 2024 (by amanda lauren, 4th january 2024, forbes)
as we are cracking on with 2024, i’ve decided that of the many architectural inspiration series we planned, it’s probably best to tackle the beast first and share some images and thoughts of the barbican estate in london. i’m calling it a beast because it’s an enormous, expensive and very well-known icon of british brutalism. for this seasoned concrete-hugger, it then makes no sense to keep postponing this blog post any further (especially as our rug already exits and more stuff might come soon…), so do come with us to explore the place from a textile designer’s perspective.
i guess everyone somewhat interested in brutalism knows some of the basic facts - designed on a 35-acre ww2 bombsite by chamberlin, powell & bon for the corporation of the city of london, it opened its first flats in 1969 but the completion of the construction only really finished in the late 1970s, after a long and expensive process and it is now home to approx 4000 people in 2000 flats. of course the uniqueness of the estate comes from the fact that unlike many other brutalist projects in the uk, it was not built for social housing and the architects were not held by the typical council budget restraints -which resulted in one of the most free and complete architectural visions, achieved by some extremely time consuming and labour intensive processes.
if you want to know about these in more detail, my first recommendation is raw concrete by barnabas calder. quite early on in the book, he has a brilliant chapter about the barbican, with some focus on the social context around it, from conception throughout the whole of the construction process which makes for a very informative and interesting read as it touches on some of the tensions throughout the whole process of building it. he provides an important angle that does not often get mentioned on design blogs like these, as we tend to get lost in the form and the aesthetics - with good reason of course, but without context it would become rather meaningless.
i first visited a couple of years ago and the first thing that really affected my perception was its sheer scale. of course it is at this enormous scale that these visions for the order of forms work the best, and i think this is why it’s such a brutalist mecca here, the complete, intact and vast system of space. i don’t exactly know where my search for a geometric order comes from, all i know is that the deceptively monotonous facade of the terraced blocks (arranged in neat squares of course) gives me a sense of enclosed cosiness and open clarity at the same time. in every one of these blog posts i’m attempting to describe this feeling but it’s so hard to explain - there is just this sense of calm that i only find in places such as this.
the three 42-floor tall tower blocks bring some exciting angles with a lean, triangular layout and column of balconies tightly stacked into the sky. of course, the repeating geometric forms serve a textile pattern designer well. it really helps that i visited on a sunny day and the shadows projected on the surfaces aid the imagination in reducing these sharp angles to two-dimensional shapes. but the surface itself, the slate and hammered concrete texture that really is on every surface, is equally important - i always say that i want the weave of my cloth to resemble the raw concrete itself, and the pattern to play with the form.
to explore a bit more about the material and the techy bits of the architecture, my second recommendation is my favourite podcast series, about buildings and cities - they have a brilliant episode about the estate, touching on some of these details of the surfaces too as they take you on a journey around the estate. they’re much better suited to explore a more architectural angle than i’d ever be able to so do have a listen to it.
what i found the most surprising about it that it was a lot less grey than i imagined - of course, the concrete surfaces are raw and beautifully grey, and the shapes and forms are varied and playful, but the pavements are tiled with maroon bricks all over, and the ponds with the surrounding greenery reflect with a very strong teal and green everywhere. it is surprisingly colourful and stimulating in its order, the “oasis” comparisons do seem to be very fitting - not in small part due to the tropical garden accessible to residents only.
but we can’t quite go away of course without stepping foot in the arts centre, home to a concert hall, cinema and exhibition halls amongst others. seeing how the columns and the concrete coffered ceilings repeat and continue inside is an exciting exploration that i really enjoyed even if some of might not work that well today or may be in need of renovation.
for the last recommendation, i want to bring you an article from the rics blog, as it’s quite fresh and talks a bit about some of the repairs as well as bringing you some amazing pictures that hopefully will inspire you to appreciate it if you haven’t visited already - and if you have, i hope you’ll now see it from a surface pattern design angle too.
if you liked this trip, you can subscribe to our newsletter below - we’re only sending these monthly with a free downloadable graphic print, and you’ll always be amongst the first to notify of a new architectural journey, or new prints inspired by them.
hello again, it’s been another month long pause at the blog (sorry!) as we’re trying to prepare for the festive period while juggling a lot of things at the same time, including a new collection that might come before the end of the year and will be our most brutalist one yet! one of our cushions have also been included in a fabulous brutalist selection by gadget magazine t3.com, so the trend forecast was correct and it’s officially in again. i thought that to celebrate this and to get in the mood for the up and coming new collection, it’s time to share some interior tips on how to bring the brutalist forms indoors, with its bold forms and raw, industrial aesthetics. it is more than just an architectural trend; it's a statement. if you're looking to infuse your living space with character and go bold and brave, embracing the brutalism trend might be the answer. in this blog post, we'll take you through some interior design tips to help you achieve that unique, edgy look while maintaining comfort and warmth in your home.
simplify and minimise
this isn’t a call to go full-blown minimalist, but decluttering your space will give the accent pieces the “main character” status they deserve. brutalism thrives on simplicity and clean lines. remove the noise and leave room for your bold furniture pieces and some accent accessories to shine. if you have exposed concrete walls, you’re already there. bring in some stark geometric shapes, and a muted color palette.
hug the concrete (duh, obviously!)
this isn’t exactly breaking news, but concrete is the hallmark of brutalism. if you can't expose your walls or floors, consider concrete-inspired wallpapers or textured paint finishes. you can also introduce concrete furniture or accessories to capture the essence of this trend.
lighting drama
i think this is my favourite. i’m a huge fan of interesting shadows and you can add great depths and warmth to your space by illuminating it with statement lighting fixtures. oversized pendant lights, angular sconces, or floor lamps with sharp lines, and similar. these not only provide ample illumination but also serve as eye-catching focal points and ambience.
honesty to structures and materials
brutalism is part of the form follows function school, so this should be extend to furniture too. choose furniture with structural honesty and that will mean strong, angular designs. consider pieces with metal frames or exposed structural elements. a bit of tactile upholstery will balance the harshness of the concrete and metal elements.
abstract expressions
bare walls need not be alone. if you have room, a few, colourful pieces would both compliment the room and have the art stand out too. brutalism often celebrates artistic expression. large-scale paintings with bold, graphic compositions can add a touch of creativity to your space and celebrate the multidisciplinary nature of the modernist movements.
human touch
a lot of the bad rap brutalism gets comes from a perceived lack of human scale and harshness - but that’s not really what the movement stood for at all. do soften the hard edges, introduce textures and tactile qualities. cozy rugs, cushions, and soft throws in earthy tones can make your space more homely without compromising the trend's integrity. it can also mean hand crafted, imperfect elements against the more pure forms. (yes, i do mean hand block printed textiles, how did you know!)
green up
another misunderstanding about brutalism is the rejection of nature. it is absolutely not. the forms may not be organic, but city planners and architects used to have grand visions for huge parks, greenery under buildings and the like. so having lots of plants in your house is just an homage to that, really.
focus, focus!
in all this starkness, it’s quite a natural wish to have a designated a focal point in the room, like an impressive brutalist-style fireplace or a bold wall covered in textured panels. this draws attention and creates a sense of purpose within the space.
colour it in
brutalist buildings are raw and stark outside, but don’t forget about colours, they do have their role (unité d’habitation, anyone?!) so don't be afraid to experiment with occasional bursts of color. a vibrant artwork or a bold, colourful rug or lamp piece can be a striking contrast against the more stark backdrops.
so there you go, brutalism is certainly not for the faint of heart, but when done right, it can transform your living space into a dynamic, artful haven. it's a trend that encourages self-expression, challenges the norm, and celebrates the beauty of raw, unapologetic design. so, if you're ready to take a daring step in interior design, embrace the brutalist trend, and watch your home undergo a bold and beautiful transformation. we have a lot of things to offer you to achieve that, so do shop around!
it’s been a while since we’ve last embarked on an architectural inspiration journey, but holiday season is coming up, so i thought i’d give you a little tip, to visit a wonderful brutalist building in one of my favourite cities. the city is lisbon, portugal, where i showed you a beautiful church before, and this time we’re going to court! okay, nobody’s going to get sued, we are just going to admire the building. the palace of justice stands as a testament to the captivating beauty and enduring allure of portuguese brutalism. join me on a short walk around this gem!
the building was designed by januário godinho and joão henrique de breloes andresen and built between 1962 and 1970. it is in the SOS brutalism. but it is not currently in danger as it is used as the main court. it stands at the head of parque eduardo VII, a peaceful, green patch in the centre of the city.
it has everything a brutalist marvel should have - the skillful blending of monumental proportions and robust materials - it is a long building with concrete columns supporting its cantilevered facade on all sides. because of that, it looks lightweight that is slightly lifted off the ground, and it does have this uniquely portuguese take on brutalism: the concrete facade here is not raw or imposing - it is incredibly decorated, light and airy, punctuated by geometric patterns and rhythmic textures, correspinding to the delightful tiled surfaces this country is so famous for.
the structure and the shape of the supporting columns create an interesting rhythm, and it is this frequency and rhythm that i find so relaxing. the concrete here is not raw, it is processed and organised into intricate, detailed patterns that pierce through the facade.
obviously it is the patterns i’m attracted to as a textile designer. the tile references in particular have a connection to my favourite way of creating geometric patterns and i love this building for showing that brutalism can be playful and decorative too. my main aim has always been to infuse this modernist spirit into textile designs and create a connection between the realms of architecture and interior decor. i want to bring it inside and bridge the gap between the monumental and the intimate, to translate the feeling of calm i get from these buildings to the feeling of calm at home.
i hope that you get to visit this beautiful building, in the lisbon sun it shines white, with the shadows adding an additional depth to this textured facade. and i hope you’re not tired of my ramblings yet, i always think that every building explains a little bit more about my mission!
if you liked this journey, there will be certainly more to come - please do subscribe to our newsletter below and be the first to read them as they come. until next time!
it has been a month since we last have updated our blog and even longer since we last had a little tour of brutalism… so it is time to get out of hibernation now and get the boots on for some well-due concrete hugging. don’t worry, we’re not going very far - in fact, staying right here in east fife, as we visit one of the student halls of the university of st andrews.
surrounded by lots of greenery in the north haugh, it is a short walk away from the town centre and the golf course. it was designed by james stirling and it opened in 1967 - it is a beautiful brutalist gem in a town and university that’s rather renowned and cherished for its mostly much older architecture going back to medieval times. it was judged to be 12th in urban realm’s top 100 scottish modernist buildings, and it has been category A listed since 2011 - it is a popular building that’s here to stay.
the building has an V shaped plan of two large wings, embracing a relaxing, wide green space in between. (this one thing is often misunderstood about brutalism - the stereotype is always grey concrete, but the balance of the green is always equally important in real buildings and that’s probably why they feel so relaxing.) the elevations of both wings incorporate the increasing ground height as the hill beneath slopes upwards. it has a striking, hypnotic rhythm to the modular facade - the zigzagging row of windows only reveal themselves from the east.
upon close inspection of the facade, the 45 degreed texture on the concrete reveals itself, rotating between the tessellated facade modules, forming a two dimensional zig-zag print on top of the spatial form. with the weather-worn effects in between the lines, it does look like a directional texture applied to the building - apologies for the pre-occupation of the concrete surfaces - this is a textile design blog afterall and i certainly don’t read buildings like an architect. i always look for the repeating geometries and the reduction of form somehow and it is always the pattern that i first notice on them and that subtle details in texture difference is what makes each of these buildings so unique to me.
it is a busy-looking unit with lots of life - housing approx 250 students divided across five residential blocks. the original plan was for 1000 students but the other buildings planned never came to be.
i did not study at st andrews so i have to rely on the university’s own website for a peek inside. it is much loved by students - partly for its rich social life, but also the quirky, octagonal room layouts. the building’s wikipedia page mentions that the stairwells of three blocks have glass enclosures for natural light, student crowd rates it 7th out of 17 halls at the university and i’d like to think that the architecture plays some role in it too.
if you liked this short tour, stay with us for more inspiration as we plan to visit more sites in the near future and bring you more posts and photos about them - and of course subscribe to our newsletter to be always the first to read! until next time!
february is here and if you’re thinking of any decorating work to be done around your home, you’re probably ready to make your plans soon… so to help you a little bit with that, here’s our yearly research into the interior design trends that will dominate the home styling scene this year!
1. BRUTALISM! embrace raw concrete and tactile, industrial materials
hell yeah! finally, raw concrete is in. in a chaotic world, we need clear and calming interior spaces and this is the perfect opportunity of the bare functionality of brutalist forms to make a come back. so, expose the surface, reveal the structure and get a raw, utilitarian jute rug to to match it (we have just the thingsfor you…!) tactile surfaces have been around us for a while but finally it’s time for the raw materials to shine as they are.
“compared to the past, the new brutalist style results in a softer approach that incorporates natural elements like wood, stones, plants and sustainable materials resulting in a warmer and more welcoming aesthetic.” said giampiero tagliaferri for vogue.
2. BE BOLD AND BRAVE! embrace colours and patterns clashing
this is another one we absolutely love at zitozza - we’re all about patterns and colours here too. this is what house beautiful call ‘dopamine dressing’ and basically means just doing what you like, because it’s your home and your castle and who cares about rules anymore, right?!
so it’s time to dive into all the patterns, all the colours, and all the textures! more is more, less is a bore. it’s time to stop fretting about matching and embrace the clashing.
3. TEXTURES! embrace the tactile surfaces
yes, the bold and brave approach now extends to all the interesting textures too. "the recent pandemic deprived us of one of our most 'human' senses: touch. in response to that, i feel it will become increasingly important for designers to make use of materials that bring tactility to the interior scheme and to devise spaces that provoke an emotion in its users." interior designer tola oluojape told dezeen.
at zitozza, last year we have seriously extended our fabric range and we have a range of different textures from the soft and cosy recycled cotton blends to the coarsest jute and some interesting qualities in-between too, with bold, tactile prints too, to suit perfectly with the “hand-formed” textures trend predicted by elle decor.
4. sustainability! embrace the planet
i have always argued that this is not so much of a trend anymore but an imperative and it’s great to see now almost everyone jumping onboard. designers do have a huge responsibility in making products that don’t cost the earth and do last longer which is what we try to do at zitozza by using a lot of jute (one of the most sustainable fibres in the world) and recycled linens and recycled cotton blends (with recycled polyester and recycled polyester cushion inserts too!)
but it’s not just about fabrics, but a whole range of new materials from mushroom leather (by mylo unleather, as seen on dezeen’s selection), but also my personal favourite: bricks made of construction waste by kenoteq(discovered on material district). it’s genuinely exciting to see what the future brings in new materials to use for building and making homes.
5. HANDMADE! embrace the imperfections
and finally, here’s another fashionable decorating trend we can help you with - to embrace the handmade, crafted accessories with all their imperfections and naive charms. that handmade aesthetic is all over zitozza too, since, well, all our interior accesories are made by hand, slowly crafted with love and lots of passion for colour and texture.
“with thoughtful, sustainable design a key focus for 2023, as well as a nod to more nostalgic designs, these 'trends' will not only lead to us shopping more responsibly, but it will also see a rise in 'shopping small', and celebrating handmade, artisan designs and craftsmanship from all over the world.” writes jennifer ebert for homes and gardensand we take this fully onboard. shop small, buy handmade and cherish the object in your home with the same love as they were created with.
and if you want to stay in touch with the next lot of brutalist, colourful, pattern-clashing, tactile textured, sustainable handmade goodies, then do so by subscribing to our newsletter below and follow us on instagram.have a wonderful year and happy decorating!
it’s becoming a busy autumn / winter season here for us at zitozza, but we do manage to escape on the occasional break to take an inspirational trip to admire some great architecture and forms. there has been a recent trip to lisbon, portugal, and we have some fabulous brutalist buildings to cover as well as the country’s signature tile designs - surely that requires an article at some point in the future.
but we can start with an easy one, a true little 1960s gem in the heart of the city, a five minute walk from the square of marques de pombal, there is a little brutalist church in amongst the residential buildings - the sagrado coração church, on rua camilo castelo branco. it is hard to see it is a church from the outside, as it stands on an elevated level from the street, with stairs inviting up to a square embraced by offices and some residential units. on the sunny day of the visit, it felt like a relaxing island just off the busier streets, but it was by stepping inside it revealed its wonderfully peaceful and serene atmosphere.
inside, it is clear what the architects - nuno portas and nuno teotónio pereira - were trying to achieve. the use of concrete is consistent, but not in an overwhelming, intimidating way as the material is broken up and softened with textures. the wall has a bricklay texture to it, while the ceiling reveals an even rhythm of the angles of the structure. the ceiling does not seem to be at an uneasy height, yet the smoothness of the columns do make it appear quite heavenly.
it is however the light, that seems to play the main role of bringing the spiritual and the godly inside. the light comes in at angles that must have been very carefully designed and is parallel to the staircases, casting shadows on the textures inside, while at the chapel it comes through unfiltered and in full, as if it was almost ready to listen to the prayer.
this article on hidden architecture has the floor plan (along some sketches by the architects too), and it does reveal the scale of the open space, and the even proportions unlike the traditional aisles. the sketches also reveal the careful planning of lights and shadows - its role in reaching some kind of spiritual peace is universal and not dependent on religion, just think of junichiro tanizaki.
this church isn’t dimly lit, or dark, nor is it overwhelmingly clear and bright. concrete has its reflective quality on light but also has its own texture to break it, which the architects also played with here by adding more, and the artificial lights are also carefully placed to interact with it. atlas obscurarecommends a visit during night time too, to experience the different light circumstances.
lisbon is an amazing city and churches are found from every style and era. its famed cathedral is almost a millennium-old and some of its most famous sights are the gothic monasteries and the golden baroque altars - all worth a visit and appreciation. i hope you don’t mind me picking this brutalist gem though, as one of my favourites. the building won the Valmor prize in 1975 and in 2010 it was recognised as a national monument, so it earnt its place on the visitor attractions and please do visit when you get a chance in lisbon.
if you liked this, you can subscribe to our newsletter below and you’ll be amongst the first to be notified of any new inspirational tours (always with plenty of photos!) see you next time
well, it’s been another long pause between blog posts, but it’s not been forgotten, only postponed, due to, uhm, general life happening at a pace, i guess. but when things get busy and exhausting, there comes the need to take a break and go somewhere else to recharge. so let’s take a road trip. let’s go, from scotland, to somewhere nice in the sunny south of great britain. anywhere. if you like going fast, you’ll take the motorway, the m6. it’s not the most scenic of routes, so it gets monotonous, and since tiredness can kill, there will be a time to take a break. and there, you’ll eventually come across a fabulous concrete tower emerging in the landscape with a futuristic footbridge arching over the motorway, and suddenly you feel compelled to indicate your exit to spend some time in this fascinating piece of architecture - we’ve arrived to forton services!
i have always been obsessed with logistics. the excitement of things and people moving never gets boring, and the systems that make it all work are fascinating pieces of engineering - seemingly everything and everyone in it has its place and function, a well oiled machine itself that can take care of millions of people and things getting where they are meant to be when they are meant to be. but while the architecture that serves this system has to be purely functional, for curious travellers who are excited to be somewhere new soon, the associations fill all of this functional stuff with positive meanings, the typefaces on vans and reg plates, the smell of the handwash soap, the hot touch of the disposable coffee cup are all symbols of the anticipation of getting there. so from this point of view, a well designed, interesting motorway station is a piece of happiness on earth, and for someone who makes textile prints of road signs, is somehow a piece of inspiration too - doubly so if it’s brutalist of course!
forton services today belongs to the moto bk chain, and you’ll find it on the m6 between junction 32 and 33. it opened in 1965, and according to SOSbrutalism, the designers were bill galloway and ray anderson of the architecture firm tp bennett and son. (yes, that’s of the same thomas bennett of the saville theatre, amongst other things - today they do a lot of interesting commercial projects - totally worth a look!)
there are some two-storey buildings on both sides of the motorway with restaurants and cafes, connected by a high-tech looking footbridge forming a light arch over the motorway. to walk across it is a great exercise to stretch the legs a little and the eyes to the distance too. the timber ceiling panels of the inside of the bridge somehow creates a very nostalgic mood in the warmth of this texture reflecting the light directly below it. that just further excites about the travel - i’m not sure how materials do it but’s definitely the timber. the tunnel view of the inside of the bridge has an octagonal frame with the joins at each window panel cutting your corners diagonally. the outside view of course is the endless motorway and the crowds of cars going somewhere.
of course, it’s most distinctive point is the pennine tower, emerging from the landscape on the northbound side with its cantilevered hexagon at the top. it used to be some accommodation and a restaurant - this blog has some archive images of the fabulous decor in its full glory (as well as the whole structure when it was pristine white!) it reminds me of the early decor of the UFO bridge in bratislava a little bit (more of that in another blog post i think…) and i would have loved to enjoy a meal there, the views across then countryside must have been breathtaking on a sunny day.
unfortunately due to the strict fire regulations, it is now closed to the general public and it is now grade II listed, even though it might be hard work to re-open it.
it was intentionally designed to resemble an airport’s traffic control tower and that all i can feel is the anticipation of getting somewhere, perhaps it’s succeeded in its job. it is a cliché to say that we must enjoy the journey as much as the destination, but in the case of how motorway stations ought to be, there is definitely truth in it!
and if you enjoyed this journey, come with us next time to another architectural visit (and until then, subscribe to our newsletter in order not to miss it!) see you next time - and don’t forget, tiredness can kill, take a break.
hello again - long time no see, in an architectural regard at least we haven’t really been able to publish a new post for a while. that’s all about to change as we have visited a few more sites and we’re keen to show you all the photos in several posts coming (as one-off episodes probably, so no more series for now.)
let’s start with the best - the building of leicestershire county council, also known as county hall. it is hiding behind leafy greens in glenfield, on the outskirts of leicester, next to the A50 leading into the city centre. it was built in 1967 and has been used as the county council headquarters since then. names are hard to find, but it was designed by the council’s own in-house architectural team - the RIBA picture database names the architect as thomas locke and the council’s architectural office.
seen from the road, the building emerges slowly from behind the lush trees, showing off its sleek facade. it is only by going closer where the site reveals its enormity - it expands across a huge field, many council departments are located here - but the layout is clear, spatious and airy. from the front, the slightly concave arches on the window frames remind me of a japanese pagoda towering above extending ground floors and an elevated wing standing on v-shaped legs that frame the green view below.
going under these we find a leafy court surrounded by shiny office windows, revealing a cast concrete mural of antony hollaway that depicts the river soar. his style reminds me of the town artists in the new towns of scotland, particularly the art of david harding in glenrothes.
in the centre of the court, there is also an armed forces memorial, added in 2012 titled ‘stand easy’ by kenny hunter - it’s a group of 1:1 life-size sculptures of young personnel. apart from being meaningful piece of art, somehow their placement in the centre also helps reveal the deeply human scale of the surrounding building and how the architects thought about the proportions - you get an inviting, peaceful sense of place here.
there are so many interesting and thoughtful details - the lightwell in the corridor roof above each window section (presumably to maximise the natural light inside) is not just functional but creates a slick, interesting spatial play - it’s a shame the day was not that sunny, i would have loved to see the shadows it creates. the extensive use of glazing overall did make me wonder about the light inside too.
on the left of the tower, there is a relief pattern in the arcade ceiling - here there are two small stairwells that lead to the outer end of this elevated corridor - from here you can take in a nice view of further out of the town, and what i presumed were fountains (i wish they were working that day.) it’s a really beautiful building and i’m happy to see it loved, maintained and functioning as it was intended to - i was not the only photographer on site on the day of my visit indeed!
it is in a remarkably good state compared to many other buildings of the same era i visited and it makes me slightly suspicious that a state of neglect in the case of brutalism could be in some cases a conscious or semi-conscious decision, to have these buildings replaced rather than renovated. but i’m glad that i managed to find one that’s working as it was intended to.
i hope you enjoyed this short visit, there are plans to travel to get out of scotland more often - subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to read about them here! take care.
happy new year! and so sorry it has been such a slow start, this is a bit of an admin-heavy time of the year with an ever-increasing to-do list. it is also a time to make new plans and reflect a bit on the past. in that spirit, i wanted to continue my series on books, but looking through my bookshelf and my past influences, i decided to go a little bit more personal, and share some of my graphic design inspirations.
yes, i am also a graphic designer, and as far as skills and interests go, i certainly got into typography before i got into patterns. let me take you back 20 years, as continental european high-school student, it was also the time i was trying to master english and soak up as much of uk culture as i could. to combine these two main interests, a convenient place to go to in budapest was the book shop where they stocked some of the great coffee table books. today i’d like to talk about in particular titled “GB: graphic britain” (burgoyne, p. 2002 laurence king, london) with the aim to line-up some of the coolest up and coming graphic design works produced in the uk at the time.
the book was designed by a london-based agency called bark, founded by tim hutchinson and jason edwards and i used to really hunt for their bold and colourful work and i did find them - in another book, “graphic originals: designers who work beyond the brief”(austin, j 2002 rotovision, mies) they talk a little bit about their process through a prospectus they designed for portsmouth university where hutchinson was a lecturer. the project itself was a map, a clever visualisation of the course journeys, but what really caught my eye was that it wasn’t just an raw information graphic, but focused a lot on using a lot of photographs of the built environment, the documentation of very mundane things that reflected on everyday life at the university. it was the first time i’ve ever really seen anything like that but that really was speaking my language. it was just inspiring to see real, successful people in the industry do this - take the built environment, and create a feeling of home and belonging in it by graphic, “2D” means. that’s exactly how i wanted to do design and it was a great contemporary example, right in front of me.
but there is another project of theirs that i would like to show you - i’m still hunting it, i believe it must have been self-published at the time. it is one titled lost futurism (according to the caption in GB: graphic britain, it is a book that was printed in 2001 - please do get in touch if you know anything about it.)
the project examines brutalist architectural heritage in a graphic design language - having mentioned portsmouth, this obviously means the tricorn centre, mostly, which i have never seen in real-life but somehow in this graphic interpretation, felt nostalgic and futuristic, alien at the same time. i used to stare at these pages for ages. it was really fun discovering about the building itself but also the graphic representation of it - it was just really, really cool and simple, and it spoke my language of taking a three dimensional form and reducing, or rather, deconstructing it to its image and basic form.
to this day i’m still obsessed with that sort of thing. i used to do a lot of my own experiments with my own photos of my favourite buildings when practicing my computer skills (a useful habit to get into) but it also transpired to other work and i firmly believe they have a place on textiles too. obviously, graphic design is different, it is visual communication, but if the result is decorative, then why should it not be used on textiles too?
so i hope you didn’t mind learning a little bit about this background behind the architecturally inspired textile patterns of zitozza. and if you know anything more about this work, if it exists on its own as a separate book, please, please do get in touch, i think i want a copy! thank you!
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links:
GB: graphic britain - by patrick burgoyne, 2002 laurence king, london, uk (on worldcat.org)
happy autumn! we’re back to work, back to school, back to looking ahead and also back to talking to people so i’m really pleased to announce tha after a long hiatus, t the design conversation series is continuing with a new arist! ciara mcinnes is an architect and fine artist based in glasgow. i discovered her fabulous prints on instagram during lockdown when i was craving to see beautiful buildings - some of them are the exact same buildings i’m also fascinated by, such as the netherdale stadium of peter womersley – so i was really keen to know more about the background about these beautiful works.
ZITA: hello ciara! first things first - could you say a few words about yourself, what you do and how you got there?
CIARA: hi there, thank you so much for having me! i'm an architect and fine art printmaker based in the west end of glasgow. i work in the medium of lino print, combining traditional handprinting techniques with contemporary, urban subject matters. inspired by the city, street art and general urban chaos, my work typically documents lost landscapes, urban spaces and historic buildings.
ZITA: i can see your architectural background - it comes across beautifully on your urban prints. i’m always glad to find other people who also see the beauty too in the things that often get a bad press. could you share a little bit about what inspires you about these landscapes?
CIARA: for me, the built environment is so inspiring, constantly changing and evolving. i love to document the city in my work, taking tiny snapshots of a place in time, knowing that it will never look exactly the same again. the light will be different, the graffiti will change, it will eventually be lost for good and exist only in print.
in architecture, it has always been the case that the styles of the previous generation are undervalued because they are seen as dated but not yet historic. In glasgow, there has been a huge cull of brutalist architecture in recent decades, a style that is only now starting to gain recognition. i'm really drawn to document these buildings in particular because of they represent an important era in history, when architects and designers were tearing up the rule book.
ZITA: that’s fascinating. i do love that era too, and the ideas they represent! do you have a favourite place, a city or a building you go like regularly going back to? Or do you continuously look for something new?
CIARA: i am always on the lookout for somewhere new, i love to travel. at the start of 2020 i visited mexico city which was such a vibrant and energetic city. the architecture is so diverse from pre-hispanic to cutting edge contemporary and everything in between, it's somewhere I'd love to go back to.
ZITA: that must have been beautiful. you mentioned brutalism before, but is there a particular school of architecture or style you’re attracted to more than others?
CIARA: i'm a fan of minimalist, contemporary architecture. there's a few places really leading the field such as scandinavia and japan but it's not something we have really embraced in scotland yet. there's an architectural practice called SANAA who create some truly breathtaking work.
ZITA: thanks for the tip, i will make sure to check it out. so what is the next cityscape or building you’re turning into a print? can you tell anything about any work in progress?
CIARA: i'm currently working on pair of prints that explore the temple gasworks in the north of glasgow. the structures of the old gasholders are still in place and create these skeletal figures in the landscape which you can see for miles around. i'm going to be integrating some more natural imagery in the prints which is a new direction for my work so i’m excited to see the finished pieces.
ZITA: sounds really exciting, i’ll be looking forward to seeing the finished prints. i’m also interested in your technique. your prints are very photographic! how are you working them into your prints? can you explain a little bit about your process as well?
CIARA: i always start a print by creating a master pen drawing which i then trace using carbon paper onto the lino block. i will usually combine elements from several photos or images into a final composition, all with a little artistic license. i often make little tweaks at the carving stage too, with a lot of natural elements freehanded as I go. the prints evolve through the printing process so i never fully know what the print will look like until the very end.
ZITA: that is really interesting! and your colour scheme is very minimalist and together with your ukiyo-e inspired technique, it reminds me a bit Japanese influences. it is very consistent throughout your work and it works to a wonderful effect – could you tell more about this? do you have a process of deciding about the colours in your prints?
CIARA: japanese printmaking is certainly an inspiration, particularly the dedication to craftsmanship and technique. my colour palette is typically very tonal which allows me to focus on the form of the print, then I create focal points by picking out details in metallic. i typically mix my inks with extender to create a more translucent effect, i love how this gives the prints an almost watercolour like finish.
ZITA: it does! the results are really beautiful. and now the questions i ask from everyone - can you recommend a book or an artist or a maker whose work is worth looking into? something that keeps you going?
CIARA: i recently discovered an artist called claas gutsche who's based in berlin, a fellow lino cutter, his work is so precise and his technique is definitely something to aspire to. in a totally different direction i’ve always loved the work of a painter called maurice utrillo who was a contemporary of the impressionists but worked in quite a different style. he has a really fascinating story, using painting as a form of therapy. he painted the world around him, focusing on the built environment and often unloved corners of paris. i only recently found out that the kelvingrove museumholds one of his pieces but it's currently in remote storage.
ZITA: sounds like someone you would have loved to met! i will be definitely checking them out. and lastly but most importantly, where can we see your work next?
CIARA: well, i do have a few exhibitions on the horizon but sadly i’m sworn to silence until the official announcements! all i can say for now is that i have an upcoming show in a glasgow gallery this autumn, which will feature some specially created pieces. i'll also be popping up at a few art and design fairs across glasgow later this year, so keep your eyes peeled!
ZITA: very mysterious! i will keep an eye on your social media! thanks a lot for your time.
this is it, our architectural journey is coming to an end in glenrothes, the last part will take us through the residential areas - macedonia (yes, really!), the glenwood centre, caskieberran and back to the town centre where we started.
we left at the green riverside park and just out of it, a steep set of steps lead to macedonia, a residential area consisting of smaller individual housing units with gardens. the area has a reputation for being deprived and a bit sketchy, however, on a bright sunday morning none of it is visible, they actually reminded me of holiday homes in hungary around the lake balaton (cube shaped single units were a huge thing in the hungarian countryside by the way, happy to write about them in a later blog!)
all the residential areas around glenrothes also have a number of underpasses and pedestrianised areas, these separated walking paths form bridges, underpasses and all these layers and their railings give interesting patterns and layouts - super inspiring to incorporate into textiles and i was often thinking about them as layered textures on the town - all these geometric, concrete shapes themselves can inspire more large scale, modernist designs.
the vision of dividing pedestrians from the car traffic sounds utopian on paper but have proved to be impractical and has probably contributed to the decline of the retailers in the town to be honest. the big building here is glenwood centre, a residential complex with a shopping centre underneath. you can notice some more of the planning mistakes here - there is an underpass that is filled in due to frequent flooding and there is a huge supermarket right outside the small retail units - guess what happened to these... because of how all these things turned out, the area has a sketchy, deprived reputation - and is now destined for demolition (there was an episode of the bbc’s “the council” (a very good series following the workings of fife council) in which a resident of the area was asked if he’d be happy if the council used some extra money to paint the staircases inside and he answered “what’s the point?”. the answer shocked me, although i understand that the improvement would have been tiny on the grander scale of things and probably temporary, but i also found it quite sad.)
through the underpasses the journey continues to caskieberran with more raised cubical units. while they are uniform in shape and size, there are individual differences and surface details between them. they do seem to have a little personality attached (and another such detail is the shape of street lights that change from street to street.) i always enjoy imagining the life inside such buildings and how different they must look inside too.
on this walk through the residential areas lead us back to the town centre where you could take a closer look to raeburn heights, a single residential tower block in glenrothes, looking tidy and renovated, surrounded by spacious car parks and i can’t help but wonder what the views must be like from the top floor. as we walk past, we come back to the town centre, the roundabouts, the underpasses and the strange layout of this new town.
on a final point, please let me link a study, okay this is not from scotland but norway, but it’s relevant - it was conducted with residents of an oslo housing estate. as the authors point out, the residents’ responses were focused on “what the landscape offers as home”, contrasting with “how experts often describe housing estates as what these landscapes lack”. let this be the concluding thought to this tour through this strange, quirky town! i hope you enjoyed this and please join me through the other new towns - if things go well, in a couple of months we can travel more across scotland and i can’t wait for another walking tour.
soooo…. here’s another new blog post series because there are too many forms of inspiration that i want to discuss on the pages of this little journal. i guess it’s only obvious that apart from making things, walking amongst buildings and talking to people, i also like reading books so i’m going to share some of my recommendations and thoughts about inspiring books as well.
i’d like to warn you though that they are entirely personal and biased and every single thought i share about these books will always be heavily from the angle of my own work and what i do and make, so please don’t expect objective, academic reviews because my inspirations are so intertwined with my making. this is going to be more of a series about the thoughts that are influencing my work but let’s start with an easy and visual one - eastern blocks by zupagrafika (2019). this is an absolutely non-comprehensive little collection of photographs of eastern european housing blocks (yes, some from my city, budapest too.)
zupagrafika are an independent publisher/design studio - founded by david navarro and martyna sobecka in poznan, poland and i’m a bit of a fan since they almost single-handedly occupy the niche market for celebratory publications of brutalist architecture in the former eastern bloc and they do it well with a beautiful range behind them - i first got my hands on eastern blocks when it first got published in 2019.
as a predominantly visual work there is very little amount of words, we get a short foreword by christopher beanland from a western perspective and then we can dive right into the photographs, many taken by the design duo themselves. the chapters are divided by locations - we get to visit prefab blocks and estates in berlin, moscow, warsaw, kyiv, budapest and st petersburg. the photography is beautiful work and it’s not from a fixed angle or aesthetics, and that is the greatest benefits i think.
while i don’t completely agree with beanland’s foreword that housing blocks in eastern europe were all about the spectacle, it is true and it applied to all aspects of life, including housing, that image (that of the regime’s) enjoyed the highest priority and it came before any other practicality of real life. for this reason though brutalist architecture nowadays often appears manipulated into either unrealistic, utopian/dystopian depictions of uniformity and scales that never existed, or as exaggerated clichés and close-up metaphors of hardship and suffering. here in this book there is neither, the photographs are simply curious and the reality of the architecture seems to be there as they are - the buildings are obviously the main characters, but the people aren’t invisible. this book is about homes, we don’t get to see inside them but glimpses can be caught of the lives in them and the building’s relationship with the people can also be guessed, neglect or preservation, renovation is all on the photos. we are not to forget that these building blocks aren’t standing on their own but are intertwined with their cities places and people’s lives - there is a human scale and element in even the grandest of scales on all the photos. or perhaps it’s just how i see them because i share the authors’ curiosity about them.
they have another related title that is more connected to my work, panelki. i might reserve a more detailed review for this later but let me just explain how it relates - this book explains a little bit more context on the prefab housing but half the pages are literally a modular set of beautifully illustrated pop-out paper blocks, of which you can assemble your own little prefab house with it. they do have other architectural pop-up books but it’s the one that’s modular and it is very much like how you can create your own pattern here - it’s a bit like how i print so i enjoyed discovering this one.
because of the visible curiosity of eastern blocks though, this remains an inspiring little book after years of looking through it. not only i keep finding new details on the photos themselves, in the close-ups or the facade or the shape, but also it is incredibly well indexed for the architects - all the names are there, the search rabbit hole is ready and inviting to disappear into. there is a lot to enjoy and for those who like my block prints and want to understand more about their inspirations, i totally recommend this book.
not having forgotten where we left off with our walk in glenrothes (read the previous part here), we are now ready to continue into the new year, aren’t we? let’s be curious and keep exploring our brutalist architectural journey through glenrothes. if i recall correctly, last time we were at the co-op and the kingdom centre, so let’s come out to the end of the street where the council buildings are - this is the focal point of the town and these buildings form one of the most spectacular landmarks of the town, sadly with a few ones already fallen.
there was glenrothes house (demolished in 2012) and kingdom house (demolished in 2020), and there is still rothesay house and fife house standing. together they form the headquarters of fife council, scotland’s third largest council, governing about 300.000 of us. my favourite buildings were actually the ones gone now - they were the original ones from 1967, first built to house the glenrothes development corporation (in 1967), which later became the office for fife council’s architectural services. of course architects will build the best ones for themselves (and of course my taste goes with theirs.) luckily i managed to catch kingdom house in its full beautiful form on my photos and i’m sharing below for you to enjoy. it’s the windows that got me, the sleek geometry, the angles, the smooth concrete and the not quite symmetric arrangement, that makes up a 3D pattern, a large-scale texture of smooth modules. and i also love the vertical blinds behind the windows and the neon lights that come out in a dark winter afternoon. i just love a modern facade and imagining the kind of work taking place behind it. i would have loved to go inside but it’s gone now and the “obituary” is just a dry warning on road closures to expect as the beautiful building gets taken away. so sad.
what’s remaining are the newer additions, the still concrete, grey and brutalist rothesay house and the more colourful-looking, extended fife house. the former is grey and textured, the latter has some white and green accents on the concrete facade which makes it interesting and is an intriguing pattern inspiration. i’m really not a fan of the postmodernist additions though, especially not the clocktower thing - nevertheless it’s all part of the townscape now and at least the mirrors reflect and double up the brutalist surroundings.
it's all very open and bright though, it certainly feels spacious and airy to me with the open car parks and roundabouts at the centre - i tried to emphasise this sense of openness with my photos, it probably helped that i visited on a sunny day. if a postcard is ever made of glenrothes (unlikely i know but why the hell not), i would pick these photos above - raw concrete window patterns and open, spacious roundabouts with tidy green centres is possibly the most accurate summary of this town. everyone who even has heard about glenrothes will mention roundabouts, they’re almost more famous landmarks than the buildings themselves. it’s very typical of the new town layout of course to separate cars from pedestrians and let cars take up the open, spacious roads. they are also perfect to place public sculptures too - glenrothes was the first town to employ a town artist and is known for its public art (and i might cover this in another blogpost because it’s super interesting!)
the sculptures used to be scattered across the town (and some still are of course) but a lot of it now has been moved to riverside park, just across the road from the council buildings. it’s large, spacious and green - if the road is for the cars, this is for the pedestrians, a massive green space for people to enjoy freely. apart from the sculptures and skateboard park, there are flowerbeds and duck ponds and woodlands - this is the largest green area of the town. the river of which its named after is the river leven - with bridges and obligatory philosophical graffiti - the latest addition being the creatively named river leven bridge, built in 1997, leading the B969 road over the park.
not far from the bridge, a steep set of steps lead out of the park into the residential areas where i’ll take you to next time in the final part of our tour. i hope you enjoyed this and are feeling inspired by the rich, deep facades and the open, inviting free space.
for those of you in fife this will be the familiar - yup, this one will be about glenrothes. i’m really into this town (the only new town on the east), so much so that i’m going to split my photo blogs into groups and go through this in more than one tour - please come with me for the first one through the town centre.
glenrothes is a new town in scotland, designated in 1948 and built and developed throughout the following years. the area has a history of industry in paper mills, and the new town was largely built for workers of a new coal mine, which, only after 7 years of operation had to close in 1965 due to technological difficulties. some industrial presence continued in the town though and fife council also moved their headquarters there.
as one of the earliest new towns in scotland, glenrothes was built and developed with a mixture of ideas leaving their visual impacts on its surfaces. the town won the disputed “carbuncle award” muiltiple times however glenrothes also received multiple awards in the beautiful Scotland competition - perhaps as a response to the negative publicity (and because the many open spaces and roundabouts are indeed quite floral)
the intention of my walks here is usually to find source of joy and inspiration for my textile designs. i know a few locals, who find humour and affection in their upbringing in this setting and i basically just aim to show the fabric of this place in a positive light. i have a lot of material though so i’m going to start right at the centre.
the town centre itself is a small pedestrianised area for shopping named “kingdom centre”, consisting of concrete alleys and arcades. the “old” town centre was once busier with shoppers, however, many of the premises today are unoccupied - like everywhere else, glenrothes has welcome suburban supermarkets on its outskirts and the car-friendly layout of the town has infact probably made it more attractive than elsewhere in the area. as in most brutalist new towns, roads for motorists and pedestrians were consciously separated, which resulted in many roundabouts and underpasses (the latter now a canvas for artists - official and unofficial ones alike).
out of albany gate at the main street of the kingdom stands the co-op building, an old department store opened in 1964. i’m not sure if this was built by separate architects or not - the kingdom centre and much of the town’s architecture is a product of the glenrothes development corporation which employed many architects at the time (with glasgow-born peter tinto as chief architect.)
the co-op this is also now empty and is destined for demolition although the plans were scrapped later. partly because of its asbestos problem (it’s now unsafe to enter too.) it’s also really interesting (in an obviously bleak way) to look at the decaying surfaces and imagine what they may have been like in the past.
it’s not my past and these are not my memories, yet i think i would miss this building a little bit, because i find it genuinely and objectively beautiful. (lord knows i hate the word “eyesore” and i find it so insulting and cheap.)
hey look here instead - the coffers on the concrete ceilings of the arcades was what inspired theco-op tileset. it’s a futuristic and human centred pattern with those edges rounded down. and the geometry of its upper facade is shiny and colourful, busy and geometric - playful and orderly at the same time. it was built for this town and its people and somehow these buildings still radiate the optimistic vision of its creators some decades later. i’m not a preservationist though and i believe in embracing the present - if it’s unsafe and unsuitable now to how we live, we can change it or make something else of it. but even if the building itself isn’t worth saving, perhaps the ideas that built them should be.
with the demolition halted, the future remains to be seen.there are now callsto use the building as murals for public art - something glenrothes has form on (i might just have an idea of a future blog post) for now, some works have begun on improvements to the exterior to make it safer while the long-term future remains to be seen. i hope you are now curious to continue this walk - stay tuned for the next tour!
