the co-op and the kingdom (an architectural journey through glenrothes pt. 1)

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)

these architectural walks often feed directly into my textile design practice – especially the bold geometry and surfaces that define many post-war buildings in the UK. 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 the co-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 calls to 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!

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links:

co-op demolition plans spark regeneration hope for fife town (by the newsroom, 15 march 2017, fife today)

planned £1m demolition of one of fife’s worst eyesores scrapped, leaving its future in limbo (by neil henderson, 20 dec 2019, the courier)

get involved with discussion about the future of glenrothes (by the newsroom, 11 february 2020, fife today)

work to finally address one of fife’s worst eyesores set to begin (by neil henderson, 2 july 2020, the courier)

stitched patterns

ok so this is going to be another more visual blog post and i might have to share a little bit more of the history behind these prints. (if you’re interested in the full origin story, you can visit my other website where i have already written a blog post about it here, however i’m quite willing to write more if you want to read!)

anyway, one of the base of zitozza was a uni project called “anthropocene” where one of the three collection called “GRIDS” consisted of block printed jute (now the SOROMPÓ, TRANZIT, FÁZIS and a small part of the SKÁLA tilesets). however each of these also had an extra “haptic” layer over the print and on the “GRIDS” collection these were stitches.

the main inspiration behind these initial patterns were of course actual grids, transport networks, cranes, gas tanks, industrial architecture, signals and signs, that kind of stuff. so naturally, more lines, straight and zigzag stitches were applied for that kind of “wiring” effect.

i’m going to put some products with these surface effects up for sale in the coming weeks to test and see how you’d like them. below then is the picture gallery of these older ideas. these are all from that old project (hence the aligning colours) with the more grid-like tiles, and linear or zigzaggy stitches that complement the surface. the colour inspiration came from industrial signage too at the time but i just love the nautical effect of these.

as for the future, i’m especially interested in this effect on the lampshades for the potential contrast against the illumination. what do you think? would this work on a rug? or a cushion?

and about the other, more brutalist, blocky patterns… combining embroidery with these is also possible, even with different colours and bolder areas, however these will be an entirely new category of haptic, tactile rugs and lampshades and cushion. see also the BRUTEJUTE project and watch this space….! :)

cushion stories (inside the scrap bag)

ah september, we’re well and truly open, and getting into autumn already (crazy). i hope you’re enjoying browsing the shop so far - thank you for the many follows on social media! we will always have regular updates in this blog too, and there’s an exciting product pipeline in the works i’d love to share news about. i’m going to attempt a picture blog this time and i’ll let the photos do the talking. the first of this kind is about our new cushions - some available since monday, some you’ll see a sneaky peeky of here first!

about the ones available: thank you so much for all the positive feedback on the two NOMÁD ones. feel free to purchase, i’m going to make them again, and if it’s out stock, they will be available in the made-to-order section. i personally also love this pattern and i’m thinking of trying it out in a few different colours and printing it as a runner rug as well. would you be interested in it?

about the cushions in general… you might have noticed, only one at the moment is purpose printed with both sides, and most are backed with a pre-dyed piece of jute. this will not always be the case as some printed fabric is waiting to be made into cushions. but the truth is… the scrap bag is a little bit too distracting and it is just so much combining remnants from lampshades or other cushions with all these colours (and with each-other in the future too!)

using the scraps is also a creative way of going zero-waste. i’ve become religiously obsessive about this and i want to be honest with it. scraps and remnants in our production line don’t just happen with pattern cutting, but i use up the dye as well if it’s a mixed colour and can’t be put back into the jar. if it’s enough for a small area, it gets printed and used up! this makes some cushions a truly unique, one-off piece. i hope you come back frequently for them!

but anyway, enjoy the pictures!