Cumbernauld: Identity, Location & Ownership

Cumbernauld: identity, location & ownership 15.03.12 Alex Hobday 200710696

Cumbernauld: identity, location & ownership 15.03.12 Alex Hobday 200710696

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Declaration Declaration Department of Architecture University of Strathclyde Dissertation 2011/12 AB 420 BSc Honours Architectural Studies BSc Honours Architectural Studies with International Study & Pg Diploma in Architectural Studies Declaration “I hereby declare that this dissertation submission is my own work and has been composed by myself. It contains no unacknowledged text and has not been submitted in any previous context. All quotations have been distinguished by quotation marks and all sources of information, text, illustration, tables, images etc. have been specifically acknowledged.

I accept that if having signed this Declaration my work should be found at Examination to show evidence of academic dishonesty the work will fail and I will be liable to face the University Senate Discipline Committee.�

Name:

Alex Hobday

Signed: Date:

15 March 2012

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Contents

_Acknowledgements

_Abstract

page_6

page_7

_Introduction

_1946-1955 Shaping the Mark II New Town

_1955-1973 Optimism in Practice

_1973-1993 Shifting Idenitities

_1993-2012 Individualism over Idenitiy

_Conclusions

page_8

page_10

page_16

page_26

page_34

page_42

_Bibliography

_List of Illustrations

_Appendix

page_46

page_52

page_58

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Acknowledgements

Abstract

Thanks to: Alan Pert for pointing me in the right direction.

Craig McIntyre from North Lanarkshire Planning for access to his archives.

Graham Hogg and Kim Stott for proof reading.

John O’Sullivan for access to his 1960s CDC house.

Family and friends from Cumbernauld and beyond.

A

t first glance it would appear that the town of Cumbernauld has largely failed to meet most of the original objectives which were set out by the Government when the New Town was designated in 1955; over fifty years later the town has yet to reach the target population of 70,000, the central area has not developed into a high density focus of the community and universal car ownership has not been achieved. Regardless of these shortcomings however a whole community has been created in a relatively short period of time on a piece of virgin land and now with a population of over 50,000 the town has established itself as a functioning piece of urbanity, even if the functions of the place are not wholly what was expected by those who set out to design every aspect of this community.

It could be questioned as to what relevance the New Town has today in the fields of architecture and planning; there are of course lessons to be learned from this

experimental piece of planning and the architecture contained within. In its housing, urban planning, road system and central area many new ideas were proposed on a grand scale and attracted worldwide interest in how successfully these ideas could be implemented. Until the late 70s the town was regularly investigated and featured in the architectural journals, but as the nature of development in the town shifted towards privatisation and the town expanded attention was to be diverted elsewhere.

Now over 50 years on as the town has weathered and the 450,000 trees planted in its first 10 years have matured can we derive positives from a town dogged by bad press in both the mainstream media and the architectural press in recent years? (Abrahams, 2005) Have new objectives, problems and ways of perceiving the town evolved and can we say that as a place to live Cumbernauld might not be such a bad place?

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Introduction

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Miles to the east of Glasgow lies the New Town of Cumbernauld, designated in 1955 in a wave of post war rebuilding to relieve the overcrowding pressures on Glasgow’s population. Intended to one day provide homes for 70,000 people, it was the first of the Mark II New Towns and the only one to be designated in the 1950’s (Hardy, 1991:43). In the years immediately following its designation there was much praise and excitement directed towards the town, both by its residents and ordinary people visiting the town as well as in architectural and academic circles, culminating with the town winning the R.S Reynolds Memorial award for Community Architecture in 1967 (Huth, 1972:33).

More recently however the town has come under much criticism in the press, with much of the negativity directed at the town’s centre, originally conceived as a focal point, a one stop shop for all of the town’s needs, it is now a sprawl of supermarkets and car parks (see figure 2).

How have these negative critiques come about? Does the answer lie in the design of the town, the increasing standard of living over the past 50 years, the decline in the design of spaces over the past 50 years, changes in ownership patterns of the town, a change in the plan of the town over its lifetime or the lack of investment in the town compared with its grand original proposals or the ever changing and complex

political context which the town is caught up in?

Two generations on from its designation, we can now begin to draw conclusions from the experiments which were undertaken in Cumbernauld as well as the difficulties faced politically, economically and culturally over its lifetime which have sought to derail the best laid plans of the Town’s Development Corporation and its designers. By looking at the life of the town and analysing key moments both from within the town and in the world beyond which have affected the town’s development we can, with the benefit of hindsight, understand how and why these key moments had such an effect over this place, its identity, its

1 Cumbernauld’s situation in relation to Glasgow and the rest of the Central Scotland belt.

2 Cumbernauld’s Central Area today.

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people and its urban fabric and perhaps we can ask what if things had happened differently?

There is much written about the early stages of the new town and the politics, theories and architectural trends during this period, there has also been some investigations and attention given to Cumbernauld in recent years, however most of this focuses mainly on the Town Centre and not the town as a whole, investigating the town as an urban entity as it stands now may give some understanding of what has happened over the previous 50 years of development and what can be remedied in the future.

This dissertation is divided into four chapters, each analysing

a different period of time covering the town’s lifespan, from its genesis in the slums of The Gorbals to the present day dormitory town. Exploring each period of time and addressing important decisions made and the various architectural responses in the town evoked by these influences, analysing what has happened in relation to the themes of identity, location, ideology and ownership. Allowing us to unpick the complex nature of the place and perhaps challenge some of the opinions and perceptions of the town as it is today.

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_1946 - 1955

_1946 - 1955

Shaping the Mark II New Town

T 3 Map of proposed development in the Clyde Valley Regional Plan.

4 Centre on valley compared with centre on hilltop.

12 Map showing extent of Dunbartonshire Authority boundaries.

13 Crown Street, Gorbals, 1946.

he Clyde Valley Regional Planning Advisory Committee (CVRPAC) was the major proponent of the designation of East Kilbride and Cumbernauld New Towns as a means of relieving overcrowding in post war Glasgow, many options were proposed for the location of new towns to serve the overspill population of the city, however with much of the

land around Glasgow having great significance to farming, mining and industry the site of Cumbernauld was finally chosen (Gold, 2007:148).

Somewhat as a location of last resort, following strong opposition to sites in Renfrewshire (see figure 3) considered too valuable agriculturally (Gold, 2007: 149),

the difficulties of constructing all of the requirements for a town of 50,000 people were well known to the authorities involved in the designation of the town as pointed out in the Government’s designation order and this was to become a major challenge to the design team.

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‘The designated area… consists of some 4,450 acres of hilly land but due to coal and fireclay workings, areas of peat, steep slopes and the presence of deep glens which hamper local communications, the area which can be developed is considerably less.’

(Gibbs & Wilson, 1959:278) The above statement from the town’s designers does not sound like the ideal site for such a challenging project as constructing an entirely new

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town. At the time agriculture and industry were obviously of great importance to the economy and would have a huge influence on the value of land. However the location of Cumbernauld on the hilltop is not only a result of land value, but one of political objections.

The CVRPAC had originally proposed that the designated area of the new town was centred on the railway line and small river to the south of the ridge upon which the town sits today, this was nicknamed ‘the Danube Scheme’ by those in the design team (see figure 4) (Lyddon, 1995), however this meant that the town also sat astride the boundary of two local authority areas and the Lanarkshire authorities to the south opposed giving up its land for the new town. As a result of this the only choice left was the ridge itself, located in neighbouring Dunbartonshire. Not

_1946

_1946

_May 1947

_1951

_March 1953

New Towns Act 1946 passed in Parliament.

Clyde Valley Regional Plan first suggests Cumbernauld as a site for a New Town.

East Kilbride New Town designated.

Census reveals still high levels of overcrowding in Glasgow.

Secretary of State for Scotland requests the Clyde Valley Regional Planning Advisory Committee is reconstituted to deal with overcrowding in Glasgow, with Glasgow unable to fulfil its own housing requirement within its boundary.

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_1946 - 1955

only did this leave the town on a site with few redeeming physical features, but also placed the town at the edge of a very sparse and fragmented local authority area (see figure 5). This decision on the location of the town at this very early stage had been proven to be less than satisfactory and in future would have continuing and lasting implications for the town.

Besides location perhaps the most defining aspect in shaping the character and urban identity of Cumbernauld, was the design of the Mark I New Towns, of which East Kilbride is one example, which preceded the designation of Cumbernauld. The Mark I New Town was part of a euphoric movement towards mass homebuilding in the post war period, but the New Town had its critics and by the early 1950s, the New Towns were coming under criticism, summed

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_1946 - 1955

up in two articles published in the Architectural Review in July 1953, by JM Richards and Gordon Cullen, attacking the New Towns (Johnson & Johnson, 1977).

Cumbernauld is focussed upon creating a sense of identity, along with an urban lifestyle which is focussed upon a single centre for the town (CDC, 1965). It is clear that what the Mark I New Towns were offering was not being received well by some and what was to follow from these would have to be fundamentally different.

As well as being a method for social improvement a New Town as was defined in the post-war era was a government enterprise, clearly demonstrated by the investment that the treasury was affording these projects with New Town Development Corporations accounting for 6% of Government expenditure by 1954 (Heim, 1990:907), the equivalent of twice the government’s transport budget in 2010. This was of course a serious business at the time and a huge commitment for the treasury, as once a New Town is designated it can be financed by Government for up to 60 years.

At the earliest of all stages the Treasury had signalled that there was one key part of its investment in Cumbernauld that was required

to make this whole project profitable, this was the Town Centre (Hiem, 1990:910). The primary social concern was of course re-housing Glasgow’s slum population, but social housing was not a profit source, the bottom line would be found in the town’s commercial and industrial property so it would be expedient to focus spending on completion of a viable town centre as soon as possible. Unfortunately, as has been well documented particularly in recent years, the Town Centre at Cumbernauld may not have proved to be the economic and commercial success that the Treasury would have hoped for, but it did not stop its architects from putting forth bold new ideas in the hope of success.

_July 1953

_August 1953

_September 1953

_1954

Architectural Review publishes ‘Failure of the New Towns’ article by J M Richards alongside ‘Prairie Planning in the New Towns’ by Gordon Cullen as part of the its Townscape section.

Report by Clyde Valley Regional Planning Advisory Committee recommends Cumbernauld as solution to Glasgow’s overcrowding problem.

The Department of Health for Scotland (DHS) investigates feasibility of site at Cumbernauld.

New Town budgets account for 6% of government spending.

Richards’ article has an obvious major influence on the shaping of the Mark II New Town, upon comparing some of its criticisms of the state of affairs in English New Towns with the objectives set forth by Cumbernauld’s first Chief Architect Hugh Wilson, it is clear that Wilson could be reacting almost directly to the arguments set forth in the article.

For instance the article describes the New Towns as offering little more than ‘acre upon acre of small houses with no visible centre or sense of urban character’ or lacking any sense of identity upon which the ‘success as a community depends’ (Richards, 1953). Only a few years later Wilson’s design ideology for

‘If Cumbernauld new town goes ahead it may well be the first mark II new town in Britain and one would hope that it would reflect the experiences gained from the successes and failures of its predecessors.’

– Robert Grieve, Scottish Office Chief Planner (Lyddon, 1995)

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7 Citizen drawing out once more the traditional English design for urbane living, upon the empty pavement of an imaginary new town, is Gordon Cullen’s way of symbolizing the problem posed by the low density plannig policy on which the new towns are based.

8 Prairie Planning in the New Towns article in The Architectural Review, July 1953.

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_1946 - 1955

_1946 - 1955

Summary

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n this era we can begin to understand what the driving forces behind Cumbernauld’s initial ideals are, politically the new town movement is a hot topic in the post war era being a key part of the Government’s house building strategy, this is proven by the high level of expenditure on New Towns alone in this period.

area studied by the CVRPAC, in fact the town lies on the watershed of Central Scotland, with rain falling on one side of the ridge flowing east to the Clyde and the Irish Sea, and eastwards to the Forth and the North Sea on the other side of the ridge.

and the practical challenges of housing such a large population on such a small, difficult site would lead to the development of a more ‘urban’ and ‘urbane’ development (Gold, 2006:115).

some New Towns resembling little more than typical housing estates. At Cumbernauld new methods to deal with financing and constructing the town would have to be found, including a mixture of for sale houses and plots alongside social housing, and a phased development that included the community facilities as well as the housing.

9 Oblique aerial photograph of old Cumbernauld, 1944-1950.

The town’s location is defined at a local scale as the ridge at the southern edge of the East Dunbartonshire enclave, and it is a far from ideal location as the Government itself has stated in the Designation Order, but this unique location is something which the designers of the town will have to deal with and will in fact lend itself to the character and identity of the town in years to come. At a regional scale the town shares a similar relationship with Glasgow as East Kilbride in terms of distance, but the town is at the edge of the Clyde Valley

Richards’ and Cullen’s ‘Townscape’ articles point towards a new solution to the way in which New Towns are to be designed and organised, an urban rather than suburban method of development, which they see as more of a step backwards towards traditional town planning (Cullen, 1953:35). Something of a new ideology in modernist thinking to take account of the spaces between buildings and how they shape the environment around them to create a sense of place as well as being pragmatic and practical in terms of design.

These thoughts combined with the lessons learnt at East Kilbride

The financial model of the new towns to date had been a disadvantage, especially in the English New Towns, which were interrogated in the Architectural Review, Richards points out that the great thing about the New Towns is that they can be ‘planned beforehand as an architectural whole’ (Richards, 1953), however financial planning for these is hard compared to typical housing developments, because the money needed to fund extra community facilities must come from the income made from rents – the only source of income for a New Town Corporation. This had made it especially difficult to build the complete communities that had been planned, leaving

_March 1954

_April 1954

_August 1954

_April 1955

_April 1954

_May 1955

DHS produces outline plan for Cumbernauld, for a new town twice the size of the one proposed by CVRPAC plan for a population of 82,000

CVRPAC report recommends designation of Cumbernauld under the New Towns Act 1946.

Secretary of State for Scotland and DHS begin negotiations with Glasgow Corporation for funding arrangements of the New Town to receive Glasgow’s overspill population.

Glasgow finally agrees to meet statutory rate contributions for houses let to overspill families for the first 10 years.

Proposal for designation of new town put before cabinet Economic Policy Committee and subject to ‘keeping the exchequer’s liability to a minimum’, consultation with the Board of Trade regarding proposed industrial areas in the town and the government being returned to power.

Conservative Government returned to power in General Election.

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_1955 - 1973

_1955 - 1973

Optimism in Practice

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esignation of Cumbernauld New Town took place officially in 1955, with a total of 4,150 acres (approx. 1,700ha), being designated centred around a hilltop where the change in elevation was some 70m (see figure 10) (Lyddon, 1995).

10 Contour Plan 11 Hans Hollein’s Aircraft-Carrier-City in the Landscape 12 San Gimignano, Italy 13 View of Cumbernauld on the hilltop

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The Cumbernauld Development Corporation (CDC), which had been established by the Government, set about designing an entirely new type of town, completely different from the previous Mark I New Towns which had already come under criticism in their first 10 years of existence. This reactionary approach to design led to something radically different from any urban typology that had gone before, although comparisons with the historical ‘Italian hill town – the San Gimignano of the Campsies,’ (Murray, 2006:88) continue to be made (see figures 12 & 13). This renewal of

aspirations and utopian ideals is what defined Cumbernauld in its early years. Why this reactionary approach was taken and the affect that it has had on the town, as well as how well the concepts were followed from their initial conception to today can all be examined and we can begin to understand what exactly Cumbernauld was meant to be, what it has become and possibly what it still can be.

The towns designers were led

by Hugh Wilson and Geoffrey Copcutt, who had tossed a coin to decide which of them would take charge of the town’s central area (Gold, 2007), they had set their aspirations high to match the growing public optimism of the post war period – this was the time when the Prime Minister Harold MacMillan had claimed we had ‘had never had it so good’ (Johnson & Johnson, 1977).

Wilson developed the concept of the town as having a ‘compact urban centre’ (Gibbs &Wilson, 1959:278), completely separating vehicles and pedestrians and developing new typologies of housing to deal with the density required to create an urban atmosphere as well as dealing with the compact and difficult site, this was in complete contrast to the sprawling Mark I New Towns. The designation order had already set out the official aims of the town as ‘a balanced community, that is to say, with appropriate provision for industry, residential units, an administrative, commercial and shopping centre, and with land set apart for recreational facilities and open spaces.’

(Johnson & Johnson, 1977) In addition to these aims Wilson set about to expand on this brief by developing his idea of the town as a meeting place, this combined with the aforementioned principle

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_July 1955

_December 1955

_August 1956

_January 1957

_March 1957

_July 1957

Draft Designation Order published for Cumbernauld New Town.

Cumbernauld Designated: Designation Order published following very short public inquiry (lasting 1 day).

Theo Crosby’s , editor of Architectural Design, This is Tomorrow exhibition opens in London.

Harold MacMillan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

CDC asks Government to lift restrictions on attracting new industry from to the town from areas other than Glasgow.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes optimistic speech that ‘most of our people have never had it so good.’

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_1955 - 1973

_1955 - 1973

Wilson described the three disciplines which would form the structure of the new towns design as follows:

14 Small flatted factory in Seafar residentail area.

15 Road network between two neighbourhoods.

16 Town model.

that all pedestrian and motor traffic should be separated was the key concept behind the Mark II New Town. This new style of planning is a combination of response to criticism of the Mark I New Town, particularly the ‘Townscape’ articles discussed in the previous chapter, and a unique working environment within the town’s Development Corporation where multidisciplinary partnerships allowed for ambition and vision to thrive within the strict Government budgets (Lyddon, 1995).

A ‘Compact urban environment’, allowing a close knit community to form, whilst still affording each house privacy, with all commercial, recreational and civic facilities to be found at the centre (within a 10 minute walk).

Although Wilson sets out to abandon the neighbourhood system of planning adopted in Mark I towns - in favour of the town being more centrally focussed around a single centre, in line with his ambition of the town being a meeting place – the neighbourhood unit is still an essential building block of the town. Neighbourhood districts are in some cases as important as the town as a whole and these neighbourhoods

have been sharply divided by the road layout. Deep ravines carrying traffic in and out of the central area act as physical neighbourhood boundaries. Where the only point of communication between two residential areas is a 1.5m wide footpath suspended 5m above 4 lanes of moving traffic (see figure 15), it could be difficult to understand that the people on both sides of this bridge are residents of the same place as Wilson had intended.

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B Separation of pedestrians and vehicular traffic by way of walkways leading from the town centre, through residential areas to the industrial, recreational and countryside areas beyond.

C A hierarchical road system comprising high capacity ‘urban motorway’ routes, distributor routes and access routes.

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_December 1958

_July 1959

_April 1960

_1961

_1961

United Kingdom’s first Motorway opens.

Approval for new advance factories to be built in order to attract industry and jobs to the town.

Target population raised from 50,000 to 70,000.

CDC receives its first Saltire Society Housing Design Award.

CDC begins to aim to encourage office job growth to increase service sector employment from 30-50%.

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_1955 - 1973

_1955 - 1973

20 Drawing from an unpublished report by the Architectural Department of the Development Corporation.

Wilson’s approach however was to develop the town as a whole, rather than have neighbourhoods focused on ‘pseudo-villagegreens’, instead the whole town focussed on a single centre to enable civic pride to be established which he claimed is one of the advantages of a medium sized town(Gold, 2007: 149). Urbanity was his key aim, describing it as ‘a way of life in which the town as a meeting place plays an important part’ (Gold, 2007:149). This sense of civic identity and urbanity was significant and the centre did begin to resemble the lively urban scenes depicted in Michael Evans’ design illustrations (see figures 24-26), showing the new

_1962

_1962

Brian Miller becomes Cumbernauld Town Artist.

Geoffrey Copcutt finalises plans for first phase of Town Centre.

17 Town Centre under construction in 1963.

18 Footpaths are bleak and except for the door there is no contact between the individual dwelling and the outside world.

19 Toddlers play spaces.

townspeople going about their business and inhabiting the new megastructure which dominated the skyline of the hilltop. It was a place of real character and significance, proven by the recognition it received in terms of awards, particularly the awarding of the R S Reynolds Memorial Award for Community Architecture by the AIA in 1967 (see figure 27) (Murray,2006:87).

A sense of place and identity is also engrained in the residential areas which surround the central area, this is something that those how have visited the town in recent years particularly journalists and academics have missed by limiting their

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visits to the town centre or the town archive located on the outskirts. Those who are more adventurous to embark on a journey on foot by way of the network of underpasses and footpaths through the residential areas surrounding the hilltop will discover something more.

The greyness of the town is the first impression; however what traditional Scottish town isn’t grey? It was the towns designers ‘adherence to the traditional pattern of Scottish building,’ (Chrichton, 1970) this is part of the character of the town. Jack House is one journalist who made the journey on foot through the residential areas in 1966 and in a series of articles on the town for

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_1963

_March 1963

_1964

Construction work begins on first phase of Town Centre.

Dr Richard Beeching’s report The Reshaping of British Railways published.

Hans Hollein produces his Aircraft-Carrier-City in the Landscape montage.

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_1955 - 1973

21 Children playing outside one of the small shops in the housing areas.

22 Group of houses.One of the many types to be seen in Cumbernauld.

23 One of the many mature housing developments that attract visitors from all over the world.

_1955 - 1973

the Evening Times newspaper describes the experience of walking through these areas and the people he came across.

Initially daunted by the grey blank wynds he walked through in Carbrain, comparing the houses with those ‘from some Arab area of some town in Israel’, with only ‘the occasional door and window’. However once inside the houses he realised they had been designed from the inside out, the cold blank walls allow for privacy in the densely packed layout, on the opposite side huge areas of glazing are opened to the south affording each family the maximum amount of sunlight possible (Lyddon, 1995).

housing in Glasgow. A study by the University of Strathclyde in 1967 found that 75% of residents felt they had bettered themselves by moving to the town, reasons given include ‘a better house’, ‘a better chance for their children’ and ‘better living conditions’ (Huth, 1972:33). Not only were the living conditions better in terms of the physical housing conditions, but also socially especially in regards to the effect of the housing layout where it was found that living on a path rather than onto a street afforded the residents a greater amount of social contact with their neighbours (Ritter, 1960).

26 View of the main shopping mall in the first phase of the Town Centre.

It is clear from testimonials of residents in House’s articles that the initial response to the standard of living afforded by the new housing was high, bearing in mind that at the time residents were coming from overcrowded

There are parts of the approach taken in the housing that are of great value and it could be argued that there is something to be learned from the town even for today’s designers. Architectural historian Miles Glendenning stating:

_October 1964

_1966

_1967

Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

St Peter’s Seminary Cardross completed by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia.

First Phase of Town Centre completed

24 Drawing of Cumbernauld Town Centre

by Michael Evans.

25 Drawing of Cumbernauld Town Centre

by Michael Evans.

‘The urban design characteristics of its early phases sound like a shopping list of desiderata for the twenty-first century urban periphery: compact planning and split level flexibility, combined with private gardens for most households; spatial openness and views of the hills around ,combined with enclosed domestic intimacy within the residential areas; sharp perimeter definition of the urban area to prevent piecemeal erosion of the countryside; and respect for the grey-green natural genius loci and immediacy of contact with nature, through a predominantly grey and white built image and flowing forest type landscaping.’

(Glendinning & Page, 1999:180)

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_1955 - 1973

_1955 - 1973

Summary

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t is clear that Wilson and his colleagues have carved out a clear identity and sense of place in the town over a short period, as was their original aim and this identity is a result new a imposed ideology, the town’s unique location both at a local and regional level and new patterns of ownership in a new type of town.

CDC had developed a unique working method and studio environment, from which they could design this new type of town, incorporating all of the elements of Wilson’s original new vision. The town as a meeting place is invoked through the radical new town centre megastructure, the Radburn style planning allowing for neighbourly interactions and the youthfulness of the entire enterprise. The corporation’s trust in its young designer’s allowing them to produce architecturally strong responses to the challenges

they were set, achieving award winning schemes all within the strict budget set forth by the Treasury. It was this boldness and strength in their ideals that helped to carve out this new identity for a new place.

They were responding to the specific characteristics of the unique hilltop location, with its slopes, views to the countryside beyond and its compactness, the results being a diverse range of new architectural solutions from single storey patio houses around the gentle slopes of the park to split level terraces on the steep slopes of Seafar (see figure). Whilst at the centre of all this breaking the skyline was the new citadel, with all of the town’s residents knowing that a short walk uphill would lead them there, and from the top of the megastructure a clear view back to Glasgow, let new residents know that they were not far from

familiar surroundings.

The benevolent dictatorship of the corporation was providing for the people a place to work, rest and play. With an average age of 27 (CDC, 1969) and one third

of the population being under 15 (Chrichton, 1971), the focus on family living and spaces for children to play was particularly important, this being a main attraction and success of the New Town, especially when compared to the conditions existing in inner city Glasgow at the time.

The optimism that surrounded the centre seems that it was fulfilling its goals both socially in comparison to Wilson’s meeting place ideology and commercially for the Treasury, attracting the fame and attention from far and wide as it did. The identity created in the town is best portrayed in Robert Chrichton’s 1970 promotional film, Cumbernauld, Town for Tomorrow, commissioned by the Corporation and narrated by Magnus Magnusson:

‘Cumbernauld really started to feel like a town in 1967, when the first phase of the town centre was completed.

Until then it was still just a collection of houses....

The planners conceived the town. The people are giving it personality.... behind Cumbernauld’s contemporary facade lies a deliberate adherence to the traditional pattern of Scottish building.’

(Chrichton, 1970) There are of course areas of concern at this early stage for the town, CDC’s housing is award winning and the experimental approach taken to the Town Centre too got off to a good start, but in terms of creating

a ‘balanced community’ that was the Corporations original goal there is still room for improvement. With 60% of workers commuting out of town for work seen as a concern as it had already been observed in the Mark I New Towns that once a precedent had been established for residents seeking work, shops and other facilities outside the town that it is difficult to change these habits even once more opportunities are established in the town (Richards, 1953). In this light it can be observed that Cumbernauld was struggling to break its umbilical cord with Glasgow, a problem of both proximity and lack of amenity to compete with the resident’s former hometown (Frey, 1999:50).

27 R S Reynolds Memorial Award plaque and sculpture Three Columns by Row Gussow.

28 Split level house in Seafar by CDC Architect’s Department.

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_1967

_1967

_May 1968

_1970

_1971

Town awarded R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award for Outstanding Community Architecture.

University of Strathclyde survey finds that most residents feel they have bettered themselves by moving to Cumbernauld.

Cumbernauld acheives Small Burgh status, Town Council takes over from Cumbernauld District Council.

Robert Chrichton’s Cumbernauld: Town for Tomorrow promotional film produced, narrated by Magnus Magnuson.

Phase 2 of Town Centre completed.

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_1973 - 1993

_1973 - 1993

Shifting Identities

29 1973 extension area.

T Village

Abronhill

Hilltop

Condorrat

A80

Original Designated Area 1973 Extension Area

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he two decades from 1973 to 1993 sees the town change in many ways, although it also sees the town fall from the limelight enjoyed in its early years, and as a result much of what occurred during perhaps one of the most important periods for the town has gone largely unnoticed amongst many who would have been following the growth of the town in the architectural press.

There is a sea change in attitudes as we enter this period, both within the town and beyond in the country as a whole. Gone is the wave of post war optimism, characterised by Harold

Macmillan’s speech, upon which the town was built, now replaced with a deep pessimism by the time we reach the mid-seventies, characterised by the 1973 OPEC Oil Crisis, when the RIBA had awarded the Cumbernauld Award to Jim & Christina Johnson to study the town (Johnson & Johnson, 1977:638). The rate of change in mood appears quick, it was only a few years previously in 1970 that Magnus Magnuson was singing the praises of this New Town which had risen from ‘an uncompromising moorland ridge’ in Crichton’s promotional film (Crichton, 1970).

There were two major events that occurred in this period that have had perhaps the most lasting impact on the town after its designation, the first occurring in 1973 when the designated area of the town was doubled (see figure 29) in anticipation of the town developing towards reaching its target population of 70,000 (Johnson, 1973:1095), which to this day has still not been achieved and looking increasingly unlikely to happen.

Wilson’s original concept of the high density ‘town’ to create an ‘urban atmosphere’ (Carter, 1983:7-8) had all been thrown out

by this single decision. In fact the architect’s department at CDC felt particularly strongly about this issue that they had previously asked the DHS not to raise the target population above 50,000 ‘for fear of destroying the validity of the concept’ (Carter, 1983:8).

This is exactly what had happened and was the start of a series of changes moving the town further and further from its original aims, values and ideology. What followed was a shift in ambitions from the post war utopian ideals to neo-liberalist owner-occupier ideals from the 80’s onwards and what followed shows how this decision had made it possible for this shift in ideologies to happen.

_1973

_1973

_October 1973

_May 1975

_1976

_1977

Population reaches 35,000 and designated area of town is doubled.

RIBA had awarded the Cumbernauld Award to Jim & Christina Johnson, who are residents, to study the New Town.

OPEC Oil Crisis signals start of two year recession in the UK.

Strathclyde Regional Council formed.

Plans for further Glasgow overspill New Towns cancelled following drop in Glasgow’s population.

Strathclyde Regional Council restricts growth by de-zoning land in Cumbernauld to prevent retarded growth in Glasgow.

28

29

_1973 - 1993

_1973 - 1993

30 Cumbernauld’s 21st birthday commemorative logo designed by CDC artist Brian Miller.

31, 32 Saltire Awards Awards Commendation 1982: Grampian Way by CDC Architect’s Department

A key change in the working practices of making things in the town was occurring, no longer was the design of new housing under the control of a single organisation (CDC), but had become increasingly disintegrated as this era proceeded. This is completely contrary to what Wilson had described as one of the major successes at Cumbernauld, where team working and complete design control over the whole town had resulted in original and ambitious solutions being sought and delivered within budget (Wilson, 1964).

_October 1977

‘Our work on the design of a compact town showed us above all that there is an overriding need for a comprehensive approach to detailed design. Time and again it became apparent that one proposal, even minor affects another.’

(Wilson, 1964) Private development was beginning to become the primary concern of housebuilding in the town and in the wider context of the country as a whole, what this meant for Cumbernauld was the beginning of a breakdown of the idea of designing in a

Jim & Kristina Johnson’s study of the New Town published in The Architect’s Journal on the town’s 21st anniversary.

30

33 Saltire Society Awards Mention 1979: Tomtian Brae by CDC Architect’s Department.

collaborative environment, where the Corporation was architect, engineer, planner and highway engineer working together as one design team with a single goal under the leadership of a single person, towards a Corporation as a facilitator of new development, under a fragmented system of mass production over bespoke design. There was not of course a sudden change, as CDC still managed to produce a small number of award winning housing schemes, two of which are located in the extension area and represent the only deployment of the best-practice learned by CDC over the years in these new areas (see figures 31-33).

32

33

31

_January 1979

_May 1979

_August 1980

_1981

Winter of discontent, characterised by widespread public sector strikes.

Margaret Thatcher voted into power as Prime Minister.

Tenants’ Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act 1980 passed providing council tenants with ‘right to buy’ their homes at a heavily discounted rate.

Residents moved from Town Centre penthouses, because of difficulty of dealing with owner occupiers in a mixed use building.

30

31

_1973 - 1993

The most visible effect of the extension has been the creation of a typical suburban sprawl of brick boxes, a return to a similar pattern of development that the town was reacting against; the low density, cottage like housing, picturesque streets and sterile semi-public open spaces (Gold, 2007:3-4) – this was a complete U-turn in thinking. Miles Glendinning and David Page in their book ‘Clone City’ argue that this is all part of the natural cycle in utopian thinking – where one utopian ideal is replaced by another (Glendinning & Page, 1999:54); he concludes his argument by stating that we have exhausted this process in recent years through the increasing contradictions in arguments. Is this necessarily the case? It is

_1973 - 1993

true that even the residents of the town have become confused; on the one hand they have been sold the modernist dream, and on the other they have been sold the suburban dream. In terms of sprawl development the question that some commentator’s often refer to is ‘Can it really be so awful if it is so popular?’

(Gillham, 2002: xv) The aspirations of those who live in the original designated area have now shifted; from the modernist era of optimism characterised by the hilltop settlement towards the mass produced housing of today.

With some residents attempting to augment features from the new style of housing onto their Modernist housing, disrupting the particular vernacular character of these homes (see figure 36).

This confusion in part may be a result of the second major event of this period which had far reaching consequences not just in Cumbernauld but across the UK as a whole, when the Thatcher Government introduced the ‘right to buy’ in the Housing Act 1980 and its Scottish equivalent act (Ambrose, 1994:245).

The result of this new legislation was that CDC was now obliged to actively sell the town’s housing stock to its residents, at heavily discounted rates. The corporation’s main commodity was no longer its modernist ideology and new way of life that was sold in the promotional films, but its housing. It was clear that the purpose of the ‘right to buy’ was simply to increase

the rate of home ownership and not to solve any of the housing problems that existed across the country at the time and the policies of privatisation had more to do with ideology than economics. This is evident in the fact that Thatcherism did not hasten the winding up of New Town Corporations, but rather extended their life, as it was found that they were ‘among the most effective development agencies promoting inward development in Britain during the early 1980s recession.’(Potter, 1991). All around the fringes of Cumbernauld it was business as usual in the industrial estates (see figure 35), with 35% of the total population employed in the town in 1991 (Potter, 1991).

34 Still from Gregory’s Girl.

35 Page from pamphlet, commemorating visit by HRH Prince of Wales, July 1980.

36 Modernist housing augmented with non vernauclar elements.

37 Saltire Society Housing Awards awarded to CDC.

36

_April 1981

_January 1982

_April 1983

_1984

Bill Forsyth’s film Gregory’s Girl released.

Unemployment in Britain reaches 3,000,000.

Britain imports more goods than it exports for the first time.

CDC receives its final Saltire Society Housing Design Award mention.

34

35

37

32

33

_1973 - 1993

_1973 - 1993

Summary

38 Page from Cumbernauld: a new generation promotional pamphlet.

39 Seve Ballesteros at the opening of Westerwood golf course, ‘What’s it called..’ advertising in the background.

40 Map showing extent of Strathclyde Authority boundaries.

41 View from author’s house.

T

his period of transition is brought about by two key external influences, firstly the decision by the Government to increase the population target to 70,000 which required the town to be vastly expanded, somewhat fulfilling the prophecy

38

of the concept of the town being destroyed. The second major influence was the election of the Thatcher Government in 1979, which brought in a wave of privatisation measures across the country, but having a particular effect on Cumbernauld, when combined with the first major influence, of creating a town which is now markedly divided in two.

needs to be paid to the early CDC housing as it is not for sale on the market and the new housing is so uninteresting it need not be shown. However much of the same language is used selling the town’s unique plan, safety, location and community aspects as had been used in the early marketing.

The identity of the town has shifted from one of a modernist social vision to one of a market led image; this is evident in the literature used to promote the town for example, where images of muted modernist housing are replaced with those of residents playing golf, shopping and windsurfing (see figure 38). It is almost as though no attention

This period also saw the town become part of the new Strathclyde region, no longer in an enclave of Dunbartonshire, it was at the edge of a massive new Glasgow-centric region (see figure 40), which led to an intervention restricting growth in Cumbernauld just 4 years after the town’s expansion. This was to strengthen Glasgow’s own growth as the region’s capital, however this is just one of many occurrences that begin to show a transfer of power away from the town, which up until this period had been enjoying a great deal of autonomy and quite clearly, from

the recognition the town had been receiving, using it well.

It is this change in the political dynamic which has the biggest impact in the ideology as towards the end of this period the castrated Corporation has become more of a facilitator of development rather than a producer. The last Saltire award for Cumbernauld’s housing was received in 1984, but by the late 1980’s long gone are the days of design under one roof, the corporation’s responsibilities reduced to laying out loop roads around which future identikit housing estates will be dropped into by the private sector.

Of course in the era of Thatcherism and privatisation ownership of the town is beginning to be changed, much of the town’s housing stock is sold to residents for far below the market value, almost against the Government’s agenda of achieving the highest value

_1988

_1989

_1989

_1989

_1989

2 million trees planted in Cumbernauld to date, managed by the town’s forestry department.

The average house price in Britain reaches £60,000.

Dates announced for the winding up of Scottish New Town Development Corporations.

Seve Ballesteros’ golf course at Westerwood opened.

Author’s house completed.

possible for the sale of assets in the era of privatisation (Young, 1991). However what was the town’s originally most important asset, the Town Centre, remained in public ownership until the Government called for the winding up of all the New Town Corporations.

39

40

41

34

35

_1993 - 2012

_1993 - 2012

Individualism over Identity 42 Two tier town.

43 Typical brick box developer housing.

B

44 M80 Motorway dividing Cumbernauld.

45 Modernist ‘grey box’ social housing.

46 Map showing extent of North Lanarkshire Authority boundaries.

Village Croy Station Abronhill

Hilltop

Condorrat

M80

Original Designated Area 1973 Extension Area Glasgow - Edinburgh Railway

42

y 1993 the Conservative Government had decided to wind up all of the remaining New Town Corporations including Cumbernauld’s, as part of the long running policy of privatisation enacted by the party, meaning that within 3 years all of the Corporation’s assets would have to be transferred to the local authority along with the corporation’s responsibilities and powers given to it under two separate acts of parliament (United Kingdom, 1993). It is also during this period that the town began to be drawn back into the public consciousness although not always for the right reasons, culminating with the town being awarded the ‘Plook on the Plinth’ award for being the worst place in Scotland on two separate occasions (2001 & 2005) (Abrahams, 2005). We have seen in previous chapters the decisions

43

44

45

made which have affected the town in different ways, both positive and negative, but what exactly has the town become as it approaches its 50th anniversary?

Problems in housing both through privatisation of public housing stock and through new private developments, problems with planning in the central area as its remaining land was soon put to profitable rather than social use as was originally intended.

Housing has always been a fundamental part of the town

as it would be of any place, and in Cumbernauld private house building had taken off significantly in the late 80s and early 90s continuing until the recent financial slowed the rate of new house building across Scotland (Scottish Government, 2011). The extension area of Cumbernauld now resembles typical suburban sprawl, not only is this problematic in the architectural sense but also in the social sense generating greater segregation according to income, exacerbating social and economic

divisions (EEA & European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2006:35) The effect here is quite marked, you only have to drive from one side of the town to the other to sense a physical difference in the social conditions of a neighbourhood in the original designated area and an neighbourhood in the extension area. What has been created is in fact a two tier town; you can either live in a brick box on one side of the motorway or in a grey box on the other side (see figures 43-45).

_1993

_January 1994

_April 1994

_April 1996

_April 1996

Ravenscraig Steelworks closes.

The New Town (Cumbernauld) Winding Up Order 1993 comes into effect stating CDC should be wound up by 31st December 1996.

British Rail privatised by Conservative Government.

Cumbernauld Development Corporation wound up and its remaining assets sold or transferred to North Lanarkshire Council.

Local Government etc.

(Scotland) Act 1994 comes into effect, with the Strathclyde Region being divided into 12 local authority areas, placing Cumbernauld at the northern edge of the newly formed North Lanarkshire council area.

46

36

37

_1993 - 2012

_1993 - 2012

‘confrontational urban politics of class’ (Glendinning & Page, 1999:58), heightened in Cumbernauld’s case by the physical divide in the built environment.

An us and them mentality is evident in the town; a recent proposal for a mixed tenure housing development between the Carrickstone and Dullatur areas resulted in the local community council calling a meeting to, in particular, highlight the provision of ‘affordable homes’ in the scheme (see figure 47). This area of the town clearly harbours some of the problems brought upon by the increasing pro-ownership ideology of the past 30 years and a shift to a more individualistic identity (Ambrose, 1994), for example a fervent desire to maintain the price of one’s own home over any kind of new advantage or amenity which may arise. The Community Council in this case believes that a loss

of amenity may be the case, even though an increase in population may result in increased public transport provision, for which the population of this area is too low to support without subsidy at the present time.

_May 1997

_May 1999

_2001

_November 2001

_January 2004

Tony Blair is elected Prime Minister of United Kingdom.

First session of the new Scottish Parliament.

Part of first phase of the megastructure demolished.

Town awarded Carbuncle award as ‘most dismal place in Britain’.

Tesco supermarket moves from Town Centre to new stand alone store in the Central Area, the largest in Scotland at the time.

This example also highlights another issue which has been born out of the loss of the development corporation, when the town was first being designed and constructed there was no population to complain against new development, there would also have been a level of acceptance given that this was a kind of benevolent dictatorship type development. There was at that time a mass ideology, nowadays this is replaced by

There is of course another side to this argument and that is the nature of the proposed development, probably another enclave of developer led brick boxes as has been the case for almost all developments in this area of the town, an example of the increasing contradictions in arguments in the search for a new utopian ideal (Glendinning & Page, 1999:54). Can a single ideology prevail when there are now so many individuals?

47 Westerwood Community Council notice regarding proposed new development in Cumbernauld.

48 New Tesco Extra store, Cumbernauld.

47

48

38

39

_1993 - 2012

49 Cumbernauld Town Centre, sculpture donated by General Sir Gordon Macmillan.

50 Sculpture cast aside due to lack of clear ownership.

_1993 - 2012

However new housing is not the only problem area, some of the town’s housing stock is now over 50 years old and showing its age, requiring increased maintenance and upgrading to keep up with new building standards. But the problem in this case is not a burden which falls upon tenants, but upon owner-occupiers

encouraged to buy their houses, even before the right to buy was a national policy (Lyddon, 1995).

Cumbernauld being originally set up as a state owned enterprise for the benefit of the treasury (Heim, 1990) is now in private hands except for the council’s remaining properties; it seems strange that the Government is not reaping the rewards which had originally aimed for. It may be that the privatisation is the best deal for the treasury, in which case there is a positive argument for this decision, however for the residents of Cumbernauld who have enjoyed the autonomy and special status of the town’s corporation; it may have had a detrimental impact on the standard of living in the town.

Nowhere is the problem associated with private ownership more apparent than in the Central Area, where the original utopian vision seems miles away from the sprawl of supermarkets, fast food outlets, pound shops and car parks - even the town’s artwork no longer has pride of place in the town centre, instead cast aside to the car parks and roadsides; the most appalling incidence of this is the treatment of a sculpture donated to the town by the first chairman of CDC, General Sir Gordon MacMillan (Cowling, 1997), displaced by the development of the new Antonine Shopping Centre and dumped on a nearby embankment (see figures 49 - 53).

Now that the town is in the hands of many people it is necessary to ask who benefits from this place?

51 Cumbernauld Shopper by William Scott, 1980.

52 Mother and Child by Michael Snowden, 1980.

53 Sculptures cast aside to car park by Town Centre owners.

54 Carbuncles article in Prospect.

51

52

49

50

_October 2004

_2005

_October 2005

_June 2007

Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh is opened.

Town Centre features in Channel 4 television programme Demolition as voted the most hated building in Britain.

Town awarded Carbuncle Award for second time.

Antonine Shopping Centre opens.

54

55 Antonine Centre.

53

55

40

41

_1993 - 2012

_1993 - 2012

Summary

F

(EEA & European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2006:35).

the winding up of CDC has failed to be redeveloped (Anon, 2011).

In the central area various works of art created for the people of Cumbernauld have been cast aside by the owners of the shopping centre, instead the recent trend in public art for the town has been focussed on the motor car. New sculptures, Arria, overlooking the motorway and neon-waves, at the entrance to the Central Area (see figures 57 & 58), are both intended to be viewed by people passing through the area, not for the benefit of residents. An article in the local paper highlighted that the cost of the neon waves (£971,712) could have been put to use buying and refurbishing Cumbernauld House, originally intended to be put to use as a community facility (AustinSmith:Lord, 2007), however since

In the Central Area problems caused by the changing patterns of ownership as CDC was wound up are abound. Loss of identity is evident in the shunning of public works of art in favour of corporate branding of the town and its centre. The development of the central area over this period has been huge, as almost all of the vacant land in the central area that existed in 1993 has been built upon, however the quantity of progress is lacking in quality. The decanting of functions from the town centre is not limited to artwork, over this period the town hall, two supermarkets, restaurants and parking have all been relocated from the megastructure to the surrounding vacant land. Whilst

_August 2010

_February 2011

_August 2011

_January 2012

10m steel sculpture Arria

by Andy Scott unveiled overlooking the M80, at a cost of £250,000. To be seen by 70,000 daily commuters bypassing the town.

Croy Station car park upgrade completed, to form Scotland’s largest station car park.

Town Artist Brian Miller dies.

Approval given for Cumbernauld’s twelve high rise tower blocks to be demolished.

56 Detail of Andy Scott’s Arria sculpture.

57 Andy Scott’s Arria sculpture, worshipping the Motorway.

58 Neon Waves ‘sculpture’ at the entrace to the Central Area.

59 New signposts in the town carrying new style ‘branding’ for the town.

60 Sign cluster, 1968, by Brian Miller.

ollowing the shift from public to private experienced by the town in the previous chapter, the town in this era is really now in the hands of the private sector.

What has occurred under this arrangement is a loss of identity or at the very least a confusion of identity. The sprawl of new housing areas completed in this period completely deny the existence of a unique developed character in the existing fabric of the town, the new brick Mock-Tudor facades betray any vernacular characteristics fostered

by CDC in the early years.

Although this is not a problem confined to Cumbernauld, it is the location of these new developments in relation to the existing built areas of the hilltop that exacerbates the social and economic divisions created by this type of suburban development

56

the council and owners of the town centre argue that this kind of development is necessary due to the condition of the original Copcutt building, others have argued that this kind of abandonment of the centre is necessary (Murray, 2006). Slowly all of the original functions of Copcutt’s vision for the Town Centre have been decanted; hotel, pub, supermarket, job centre, town hall, police station, pent houses and bowling alley (Osborn & Whittick, 1977).

What has emerged at the centre is the antithesis of urban centre originally envisaged, a kind of suburban sprawl of car parks and retail sheds, which is unlikely to be remedied in the near future owing to the complex ownership patterns of the centre.

57

58

59

60

42

43

_

_

Conclusions

O

ver the past fifty years what has been created at Cumbernauld paints a picture of the changing nature of society in Britain, through all of the external influences placed on the town from the Townscape movement of the 1950s, the wave of increasing owner occupation in the 1980s to the supermarket commercialisation of the 1990s.

The town’s designers and those responsible for managing this enterprise could never have anticipated the ever changing context surrounding the New Town.

The town’s popularity has risen and fallen in line with the strengths of the utopian ideologies imposed upon it, in the early days of the 1950 to the early

1970s the town’s population was steadily rising upon the wave of optimism surrounding the town and the modernist ideologies it was designed around. Following this the period of change heralded firstly by the town’s expansion and shift towards private house building, owner-occupation and market driven growth, the growth in population was slowing, plateauing around the 50,000 mark by 1990 (Lyddon,1995). In more recent years the cementing of the neo-liberal ideals of home ownership, has seen further expansion in the town, with every patch of available land made available for house building, with new mass produced timber kit houses marketed at homeowners as individuals rather than for the masses.

At the heart of the town has always been the Town Centre and it is here that the changing patterns of ownership of the town can be seen to be having the most visible effect. What started as a concept of a single structure housing all of the town’s social, business and recreational facilities under one roof (Chrichton, 1970), is now a scattering of individual buildings each housing their own individual functions. Under private ownership the Town Centre has shifted itself more towards a retail centre, the only intact civic aspect of the original concept remaining being the town’s library - isolated on the fourth floor. In the residential areas originally each house had its own private garden and a group of houses shared the

associated outdoor space between houses - used as an extension of the child’s playroom (Ritter, 1960). Nowadays under owneroccupation the private garden remains but residents no longer take ownership of the communal spaces. In newer private owneroccupier developments home ownership has become so individualised that communal space is no longer provided, perhaps it has no value since it cannot be sold.

44

45

_

_

edge. Following the dissolution of Strathclyde regional council and CDC, the town then became the largest town of the present North Lanarkshire council area, which is headquartered in the nearby and much smaller town of Motherwell.

61

Although the town has always been physically located in the same place, politically, socially and economically it has not.

Although the designers at CDC have always conceived the town as a hypothetical regional centre and the town has been consistently marketed as such, politically the town has always been sited at the edge of a region.

At designation the town was at the southern edge of an enclave of Dunbartonshire. In 1975 the town became part of the newly created Strathclyde region, although again it was sited at this vast region’s

The proximity to Glasgow has always been a problem and is evident today in the town’s dormitory status combined with the fact that much of the new developer housing is close to the town’s de-facto main railway station at Croy, which has Scotland’s largest station car park to cater for the daily throng of commuters travelling to Glasgow and other workplaces in the Central Belt. Perhaps Cumbernauld should take its cue from this situation when positioning itself as part of a regional centre, combining this

with its location at the watershed of the Clyde and Forth valleys and Patrick Geddes idea of a singular Clydeforth region for Central Scotland (see figure 61) (Glendinning & Page, 1999).

The result of the ever changing context with which the town sits has been an ever changing identity, from the youthful optimism of the newly designated town, the patronising ‘what’s it called...?’ era to the Carbuncles and brick box dormitory town of the present day. The strongest of all of these various identities and the one which is looked most fondly upon is the one which was backed up by the strongest ideology, that of the Modernist Utopia. A place of youthful optimism and opportunity in which children and families could live, work and play captured brilliantly in the films Town for

Tomorrow and Gregory’s Girl.

More recently however, because the new brick box mass produced housing are not backed up by an ideology, they are lacking any identity - the houses are no different from those produced by a mass house builder in any other place in the country regardless of site conditions or location.

If there is any lesson to be learned from the experiments conducted at Cumbernauld perhaps it is from the housing developed under the unique working environment and ideology of the Development Corporation, award winning site specific housing designed and constructed under a small budget, producing housing that is unique, fit for purpose and has a strong outward identity and sense of place.

61 Cumbernauld at the centre of a Clydeforth region.

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Potter, S. 1991. ‘Going, going, nearly gone.’ Town and Country

United Kingdom. 1993. The New Town (Cumbernauld) Winding Up

Planning. vol. 60, no. 10, p. 296-299

Order 1993. Edinburgh: HMSO

Ritter, P. 1960. ‘Radburn Planning: a reassessment. 4 - comparative costs.’ The Architects Journal. Vol. 132, p.836-842

Film

dir. Robert Chrichton. Cumbernauld, Town for Tomorrow. (Edinburgh Film Productions, 1970)

Ritter, P. 1960. ‘Radburn Planning: a reassessment. 3 - footpath or road access? a social enquiry, 2.’ The Architects Journal. Vol. 132, p.765-

dir. Bill Forsyth. Gregory’s Girl. (Lake Films, 1981)

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Richards, J.M. 1953. ‘Failure of the New Towns.’ Architectural Review.

Vol. 114, p.28-32 Seymer, N. 1960. ‘Cumbernauld in Parliament: A question of density.’

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List of Illustrations 1 Cumbernauld’s situation in relation to Glasgow and the rest of the Central Scotland belt.(from CDC,1970) 8 2 Cumbernauld’s Central Area today. (author’s photograph, digital) 9 3 Map of proposed development in the Clyde Valley Regional Plan. (from Abercrombie, 1946) 10 4 Centre on valley compared with centre on hill (from Greater London Council, 1965:29) 11 5.

Map showing extent of Dunbartonshire Authority boundaries (author’s drawing) 11 6 Crown Street, Gorbals, 1946. http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/ virtualmitchell/image.php?i=13850&r=2&t=4&x=1 [26/02/2012] 11 7 Citizen drawing out once more the traditional English design for urbane living, upon the empty pavement of an imaginary new town, is Gordon Cullen’s way of symbolizing the problem posed by the low density plannig policy on which the new towns are based.(from Richards, 1953) 12 8 Prairie Planning in the New Towns article in The Architectural Review, July 1953.(from Cullen, 1953) 12 9 Oblique aerial photograph of old Cumbernauld, 1944 - 1950. http:// canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/206932/details/cumbernauld+village+m ain+street+general/ [26/02/2012] 15 10 Contour plan. (from Wilson, 1964) 16

11 Hans Hollein’s Aircraft-Carrier-City in the Landscape http://www. hollein.com/eng/ART/Flugzeugtraeger-in-der-Landschaft [09/03/2012] 17 12 San Gimignano, Italy. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cfwee/221511838/ sizes/z/in/photostream/ [07/03/2012] 17 13 View of Cumbernauld on the hilltop. (from CDC, 1988) 17 14 Small flatted factory in Seafar residential area. (from Wilson,1964) 18 15 Road network between two neighbourhoods. http://canmore.rcahms. gov.uk/en/site/74267/details/cumbernauld+greenfaulds+general/ [05/02/2012] 19 16 Town model. (from Seymer, 1960) 19 17 Town Centre under construction in 1963. (from Murray, 2006) 20 18 Footpaths are bleak and except for the door there is no contact between the individual dwelling and the outside world. (from Kenward, 1975) 21 19 Toddlers play spaces. (from Wilson, 1964) 21 20 Drawing from an unpublished report by the Architectural Department of the Development Corporation. (from Ritter, 1960) 21 21 Children playing outside one of the small shops in the housing areas. (from CDC, 1969) 23 22 Group of houses.One of the many types to be seen in Cumbernauld. (from CDC, 1969) 23

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23 One of the many mature housing developments that attract visitors from all over the world. (from CDC, 1969) 23 24 Drawing of Cumbernauld Town Centre by Michael Evans. http:// canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/details/903050/ [05/02/2012] 23 25 Drawing of Cumbernauld Town Centre by Michael Evans. http:// canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/details/903048/ [05/02/2012] 23 26 View of the main shopping mall in the first phase of the Town Centre. (from CDC,1969) 23 27 R S Reynolds Memorial Award plaque and sculpture Three Columns

by Row Gussow. http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/details/710130/ [05/02/2012] 24 28 Split level house in Seafar by CDC Architect’s Department. (author’s photograph, digital) 24 29 1973 extension area (author’s drawing) 26 30 Cumbernauld’s 21st birthday commemorative logo designed by CDC artist Brian Miller. (from Johnson & Johnson, 1977) 28 31 Saltire Awards Awards Commendation 1982: Grampian Way by CDC Architect’s Department (from Davie, 1995) 29 32 Saltire Awards Awards Commendation 1982: Grampian Way by CDC Architect’s Department (from Davie,1995) 29 33 Saltire Society Awards Mention 1979: Tomtian Brae by CDC Architect’s Department.(from Davie, 1995) 29

34 Still from Gregory’s Girl. (from Forsyth, 1981) 30 35 Page from pamphlet, commemorating visit by HRH Prince of Wales, July 1980. (from CDC, 1980) 31 36 Modernist housing augmented with non vernacular elements. (author’s photograph, digital) 31 37 Saltire Society Housing Awards awarded to CDC. (from CDC,1988) 31 38 Page from Cumbernauld: a new generation promotional pamphlet. (from CDC, 1988) 32 39 Seve Ballesteros at the opening of Westerwood golf course, ‘What’s it called..’ advertising in the background. http://www.chicharper. com/2009/12/01/whats-it-called/ [11/03/2012] 33 40 Map showing extent of Strathclyde Authority boundaries. (author’s drawing) 33 41 View from author’s house. (author’s photograph, 35mm) 33 42 Two tier town. (author’s drawing) 34 43 Typical ‘brick box’ developer housing. (author’s photograph, digital) 35 44 M80 Motorway dividing Cumbernauld. http:/www.flickr.com/ photos/45060815@N07/4669639983/sizes/z/in/photostream; [11/03/2012] 35

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45 Modernist ‘grey box’ social housing. http:/www.flickr.com/ photos/45060815@N07/4669639983/sizes/z/in/photostream; [11/03/2012] 35

57 Andy Scott’s Arria sculpture, worshipping the Motorway. (author’s photograph, digital) 41

46 Map showing extent of North Lanarkshire Authority boundaries. (author’s drawing) 35

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Neon Waves ‘sculpture’ at the entrace to the Central Area. http://www. cumbernauld-news.co.uk/news/local-headlines/low_voltage_launch_ for_neon_waves_1_1637719 [22/02/2012] 41

47 Westerwood Community Council notice regarding proposed new development in Cumbernauld. (scanned image) 37

59 New signposts in the town carrying new style ‘branding’ for the town. (author’s photograph, digital) 41

48 New Tesco Extra store, Cumbernauld. http:/www.flickr.com/photos/ brendiemurphy/4864821488/sizes/l/in/photostream; [11/03/2012] 37

60 Sign cluster, 1968, by Brian Miller. http:/www.publicartscotland.com/ reflections/42; [11/03/2012] 41

49 Cumbernauld Town Centre, sculpture donated by General Sir Gordon Macmillan. http:/parole.aporee.org/files/ga12/cumbernauld_town_ center.jpg; [11/03/2012] 38

61 Cumbernauld at the centre of a Clydeforth region. (author’s drawing) 44

50 Sculpture cast aside due to lack of clear ownership. (author’s photograph, digital) 38 51 Cumbernauld Shopper by William Scott, 1980. (from CDC, 1981) 39 52 Mother and Child by Michael Snowden, 1980. (from CDC, 1981) 39 53 Sculptures cast aside to car park by Town Centre owners. (author’s photograph, digital) 39 54 Carbuncles article in Prospect. (from Abrahams, 2005) 39 55 Antonine Centre. http://www.flickr.com/photos/41695432@ N04/4213243160/sizes/z/in/photostream/ [11/03/2012] 39 56 Detail of Andy Scott’s Arria sculpture. (author’s photgraph, digital) 40

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Appendix