The making of a megastructure: architectural modernism, town planning and Cumbernauld’s Central Area, 1955–75

Abstract

The development of the Central Area at Cumbernauld New Town was a landmark in town centre design and an intriguing example of the convergence between architectural modernism and town planning in the 1950s and 1960s. This paper, which considers the genesis, development and subsequent reassessment of this extraordinary structure, comprises five main parts. The first supplies conceptual background, by seeing the Central Area as an expression of thinking about megastructures. The next section examines the background to the designation of Cumbernauld New Town and the challenges that its location posed for town centre design. The third part discusses the way that Cumbernauld’s town centre, one of the few megastructures ever built, evolved as the chosen form for this site, looking at the progress from initial ideas through to the formal design. The fourth section reviews the various phases of implementation, concentrating on the two initial phases – the only ones that proceeded in line with the original megastructural schema. The final section reflects on the abandonment of the megastructural principle after Phase 2 and considers the wider significance of this episode. It highlights the design deficiencies and poor political decisions that blighted the megastructure before commenting on the implications of this episode for understanding the relationship between architectural modernism and town planning.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based was undertaken while on sabbatical leave funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The author would like to acknowledge this support as well as the wholehearted assistance of David Whitham and Miles Glendinning, who generously loaned unpublished materials.

Notes

1. Cumbernauld: Town for Tomorrow, directed by R. Crichton, Edinburgh Films Production for Films of Scotland/Cumbernauld Development Corporation, 1970.

2. Ibid.

3. For example, see the cross‐cultural analyses found in Clarkson H. Oglesby and Lawrence I. Hughes, Highway Engineering, second edition. New York and London: John Wiley and Son, 1963; Paul Ritter, Planning for Man and Motor. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1964.

4. W. Houghton‐Evans, Planning Cities; legacy and portent. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975, p. 106.

5. For example, see Ulrich Conrads and Hans G. Sperlich, Fantastic Architecture. London: Architectural Press, 1963.

6. John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold, Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851–2000. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2005.

7. Patricia Pierce, Old London Bridge. London: Hodder Headline, 2001.

8. Esther da Costa Meyer, The Work of Antonio Sant’Elia: retreat into the future. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1995.

9. Lars Olof Larsson, Metropolitan Architecture, in Anthony Sutcliffe (ed.) Metropolis, 1890–1940. London: Mansell, 1984, pp. 191–220; K. M. Hays, Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject: the Architecture of Hannes Mayer and Ludwig Hilberseimer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.

10. Le Corbusier, La Ville Radieuse. Boulogne‐sur‐Seine: Vincent, Freal and Cie, 1935; translated as The Radiant City, London: Faber and Faber, 1966, pp. 233–61.

11. See, for example, Charles Jencks, Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture. London: Allen Lane, pp. 136–48.

12. Sergei Kadleigh, assisted by Patrick Horsbrugh, High Paddington: a town for 8000 people. London: The Architect and Building News, 1952.

13. Peter Collymore, The Architecture of Ralph Erskine. London: Academy Editions, 1995, pp. 22–4.

14. See, for example, Paolo Riani (ed.), Kenzo Tange. London: Hamlyn, 1969, pp. 26–34.

15. Fumihiko Maki, Investigations in Collective Form. St Louis, MO: School of Architecture, Washington University, 1964. The term gradually ousted rivals such as ‘omnibuilding’ or ‘megabuilding’ to describe the apparently modern trend towards huge multi‐function structures.

16. The best single guide remains: P. Reyner Banham, Megastructure: urban futures of the recent past. London: Thames and Hudson. Other guides to the extraordinary range of schemes suggested can be found in Vittorio M. Lampugnani, Visionary Architecture of the 20th Century: master drawings from Frank Lloyd Wright to Aldo Rossi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1982; Martin Pawley, Theory and Design in the Second Machine Age. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990, pp. 102–11; C. W. Thomsen, Visionary Architecture: from Babylon to virtual reality. Munich: Prestel, 1994; S. Sadler, The Situationist City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998; Mark Wigley, Constant’s New Babylon: the hyper‐architecture of desire. Witte‐de‐With: 010 Publishers, 1998; E. Burden, Visionary Architecture: unbuilt works of the imagination. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 2000; Ruth Eaton, Ideal Cities: utopianism and the (un)built environment. London: Thames and Hudson 2001, pp. 216–35; and Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 208–29.

17. The information is from an interview with Rodney Gordon, 11 November 2004. See also Oliver Marriott, The Property Boom. London: Hamish Hamilton, pp. 63–4.

18. For earlier studies, see Christopher Booker, The Seventies. London: Allen Lane, 1980, p. 294; Alice Coleman, Utopia on Trial. London: Hilary Shipman, 1985; Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: an Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, chapter 7.

19. For example, Robert A. Beauregard, Between modernity and postmodernity: the ambiguous position of US planning. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 7 (1989) 381–95; Leonie Sandercock, The death of modernist planning: radical praxis for a postmodern age, in Michael Douglass and John Friedmann (eds) Cities for Citizens. Chichester: Wiley, 1998, pp. 163–84; Philip Allmendinger, Planning in Postmodern Times. London, E&FN Spon, 2000.

20. For example, Eric Mumford, CIAM urbanism after the Athens Charter, Planning Perspectives, 7 (1992) 391–417; Jane Hobson, New Towns, the Modernist Planning Project and Social Justice. Working Paper 108, Development Planning Unit, University College London, 1999; Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000; Emily Talen, New Urbanism and American Planning: the conflict of cultures. New York: Routledge, 2005.

21. It is not possible to provide a full discussion of the nature and derivation of these concepts here. For an overview of these notions, see John R. Gold, The Practice of Modernism: modern architects and urban transformation, 1954–72. London: Routledge, 2006, chapter 2.

22. James Holston, Spaces of insurgent citizenship, in Leonie Sandercock (ed.) Making the Invisible Visible: a multicultural planning history. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 43.

23. E. Talen, op. cit. [20], p. 51.

24. William J. R. Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, third edition. London: Phaidon, 1996, p. 442.

25. Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Jose‐Luis Sert, and Ernesto N. Rogers (eds), The Heart of the City: Towards the Humanisation of Urban Life. London: Lund Humphries.

26. This school of thought is linked particularly to the writings of Peter and Alison Smithson. For contemporary writings, see Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, Cluster city: a new shape for the community. Architectural Review 122, 730 (1957) 333–6; and Alison Smithson, Team 10 Primer. London, Studio Vista, 1969. For commentary, see: D. van den Heuvel and M. Risselada (eds) Alison and Peter Smithson: from the House of the Future to a House of Today. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2004; Architectural Association, “Architecture is not made with the Brain”: the labour of Alison and Peter Smithson. Architecture Landscape Urbanism 9, London: Architectural Association.

27. J. R. Gold, op. cit. [21], chapter 8.

28. Miles Glendinning, Cluster Citadel: the Architecture and Planning of Cumbernauld Town Centre. Unpublished manuscript, 1991.

29. Interview with Alex Kerr, 2 December 2004.

30. Patrick Abercrombie and Robert H. Matthew, The Clyde Valley Regional Plan, 1946. Edinburgh: HMSO. The plan itself was prepared from 1943 onwards and implemented from 1946, but not finally published until 1949.

31. J. Barry Cullingworth, Environmental Planning, volume 3 – New Towns Policy. London: HMSO, 1979, pp. 33, 39.

32. Information from an unpublished aide‐mémoire written by Alex Kerr, December 2004.

33. J. B. Cullingworth, op. cit. [31], p. 89. McNeil’s tenure as Secretary of State for Scotland, however, was only between February and October 1951.

34. Ibid., pp. 116–63.

35. Sir Robert Grieve (in conversation with Kirsteen Borland), The Clyde Valley Plan and its legacy. Unpublished transcript of RFACS seminar, Edinburgh, 1994.

36. Interview, op. cit. [29].

37. Interview with Dr Derek Lyddon, 3 December 2004.

38. Cumbernauld New Town Development Corporation (henceforth CNTDC), First Report, 1956, in A. Burton and J. Hartley (eds) New Towns Record, 1946–1996 (henceforth NTR). Glasgow: Planning Exchange Glasgow: Planning Exchange CD‐ROM 1, 1997.

39. Sir R. Grieve, op. cit. [35]. For more on the density calculations see: Elspeth Farmer and Roger Smith, Overspill theory: a metropolitan case study. Urban Studies 12 (1975) 151–68.

40. Miles Glendinning and David Page, Clone City: crisis and renewal in contemporary Scottish architecture. Edinburgh: Polygon, p. 180.

41. Hugh Wilson, Cumbernauld New Town: Preliminary Planning Proposals, Cumbernauld: CNTDC, 1958. See also W. Houghton‐Evans, op. cit. [4], p. 103. Wilson’s plan for Cumbernauld was described in a 1966 New Society article by Peter Hall as ‘epoch‐making’ for its willingness to face up to the challenge of the car. This information comes from the reprint of the article: Peter Hall, The pattern of cities to come, in Paul Barker (ed.) One for Sorrow, Two for Joy: ten years of New Society. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972, pp. 183–92.

42. CNTDC, Cumbernauld Technical Brochure, n.d.; cited in Jim Johnson and Krystyna Johnson, Cumbernauld revisited. Architects’ Journal 166, 40 (1977) 639.

43. Interview with Sir Robert (Bob) Grieve by Dr Derek Lyddon, December 1994. NTR, op. cit. [38], CD‐ROM 1.

44. F. J. Osborn and Arnold Whittick, New Towns: their origins, achievements and progress, third edition. London: Leonard Hill, 1977, p. 419.

45. Anon, Cumbernauld New Town: preliminary planning proposals. Architects’ Journal 127 (1958) 858–9.

46. Interview between Oliver Cox and Neil Bingham, 1 March 2000, Tape F15579 Side A, National Sound Archive. For more on the plans for Hook, see London County Council, The Planning of a New Town. London: London County Council, 1961.

47. Op. cit. [32].

48. CNTDC, Preliminary Planning Proposals, Cumbernauld: CNTDC, 1958.

49. Frank Schaffer, The New Town Story. London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1970, p. 64.

50. F. J. Osborn and Arnold Whittick, op. cit. [44], p. 159.

51. Ibid, pp. 398–400, 411–12.

52. Peter Hall and Colin Ward, Sociable Cities: the legacy of Ebenezer Howard. London: John Wiley, p. 56.

53. Initially it simply comprised Copcutt, Alex Kerr and Ronald Simpson.

54. It may be speculated that Edinburgh, especially the Old Town, supplied exemplars of how to fit buildings to awkward topography. Interview, op. cit. [29].

55. Anon, Garage at Loughborough: Copcutt, Hancock and Hawkes. Zodiac 1 (1958) 169–72. Maxwell Fry, in particular, commented how the work of Copcutt’s practice and that of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, with their Cooper Taber factory at Witham, gave a ‘rather clear idea about some trends of contemporary architecture in Great Britain’. See E. Maxwell Fry, Factory at Hemel Hempstead. Zodiac 1 (1958) 182.

56. Copcutt seems to dispute this and stated that the reason that he received this portfolio rather than Derek Lyddon was by tossing a coin. See Geoffrey Copcutt, Reflections on Cumbernauld Town Centre, in A. Burton and J. Hartley, NTR, op. cit. [38], CD‐ROM 1. Derek Lyddon, however, has no recollection of this and suggests it was highly unlikely: interview, op. cit. [37].

57. J. Johnson and K. Johnson, op. cit. [42], p. 639.

58. It is impossible to go into the detail of these reports here. Material relating to this subject here and in the ensuing paragraph come from the manuscript draft of chapter 6 of Rod Hardy (ed.), Building a New Town. An unpublished edited collection of essays compiled in 1963–4. The chapter bears the initials of Hugh Wilson.

59. Interview with Sir Andrew Derbyshire, 16 December 2004.

60. CNTDC, Cumbernauld Town Centre: Preliminary Report, Cumbernauld: CNTDC, c. 1960, p. 4.

61. Ibid., p. 3, emphasis added.

62. The information is from an unpublished handwritten note by Alex Kerr, December 2004. Copcutt was a compulsive visualizer but worked primarily through scale modelling as he was a relatively poor draughtsman, tending to work by supplying ideas from which others produced line drawings. Kerr noted: ‘Copcutt was always accompanied by a 10 inch roll of tracing paper, 20 yards long. On this, he produced loads of ideas and basic sketches which could be taken forward by others more able to execute line drawings with the type of attention to detail that this demands’.

63. An example is shown in Geoffrey Copcutt, Cumbernauld New Town Central Area. Architectural Design 33 (1963) 210. A description is found in R. Hardy, op. cit. [58], p. 7.

64. R. Hardy, ibid., chapter 6. This point also draws on CNTDC, Planning Proposals – Second Revision: Second Addendum Report to the Preliminary Planning Proposals. Cumbernauld: CNTDC, 1962.

65. Ministry of Transport, Traffic in Towns: a study of the long term problems of traffic in urban areas (the Buchanan Report). London: HMSO, 1963, p. 166 (emphases as in original).

66. Interview, op. cit. [29]. Each was ruled out on grounds of cost.

67. Peter Youngman; cited in J. Johnson and K. Johnson, op. cit. [42], p. 640.

68. By Professor A. Hendry (Liverpool University).

69. Anon, Cumbernauld New Town Central Area. Architectural Design 33 (1963) 229.

70. David Whitham, Coming of age: Scottish new towns in the 21^st century. Paper presented to the Sixth International DOCOMOMO Conference, Brasilia, Brazil, September 2000.

71. M. Glendinning, op. cit. [28].

72. G. Copcutt, op. cit. [63], p. 210.

73. Ibid; see also Miles Glendinning, Megastructure and genius loci: the architecture of Cumbernauld New Town, in Proceedings of the Fourth DOCOMOMO International Conference. Bratislava: DOCOMOMO, 1996, p. 125.

74. R. Hardy, op. cit. [58], p. 10.

75. Originally coined in 1950 as a joke by the Swedish architect Hans Asplund, the word ‘Brutalism’ had been appropriated with enthusiasm by younger British architects, such as Peter and Alison Smithson, to describe their work.

76. Reyner Banham, quoted in Charles Jencks, Modern Movements in Architecture. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, p. 257.

77. Interview, op. cit. [29].

78. CNTDC, Annual Report, 1963. NTR, op. cit. [38], CD‐ROM 2.

79. F. Schaffer, op. cit. [49], p. 124. For a flavour of the international reaction see: Anon, Une importante experience anglaise: la nouvelle ville de Cumbernauld. Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (January–February 1963); H. Stumme, Das Zentrum der “Neuen Stadt” Cumbernauld in Schottland. Bauwelt 54 (1963) 995ff.

80. Anon, Town Centre: Cumbernauld. Architectural Review 142, 439 (1967) 445–51.

81. Our Architectural Correspondent, Scope of New Town begins to show. The Times (September 16, 1966).

82. F. Schaffer, op. cit. [49], pp. 124–5.

83. F. J. Osborn and Arnold Whittick, New Towns: their origins, achievements and progress, revised edition. London: Leonard Hill, 1969, p. 386.

84. Anon, Town centre: phase 1. Architects’ Journal 147, 5 (1968) 304.

85. Ibid, p. 307.

86. Patrick Nuttgens, Criticism: Cumbernauld Town Centre. Architectural Review 142, 850 (1967) 444.

87. M. Glendinning, op. cit. [28].

88. Ibid.

89. Quoted in an unpublished memorandum written in April 1995 by Brigadier Colin H. Cowan entitled ‘Individual thoughts on Cumbernauld Town Centre’. Cowan was the General Manager/Chief Executive of Cumbernauld Development Corporation, 1970–85.

90. CNTDC, Annual Report, 1973. NTR, op. cit. [38], CD‐ROM 2.

91. CNTDC, Annual Report, 1975. NTR, op. cit. [38], CD‐ROM 2.

92. It is not possible to go into details of the way in which ICOMOS‐UK, the British branch of the United Nations organization that lists and monitors World Heritage Sites, has placed the Town Centre on their listing of buildings expressing Britain’s twentieth century heritage. For more information: Maev Kennedy, 20th century buildings win heritage mark of respect. The Guardian (June 17, 2002) and, for a counter‐view, George Kerevan, So how did we get from classical to carbuncle?. The Scotsman (February 21, 2005).

93. C. H. Cowan, op. cit. [89].

94. Ibid.

95. David Cowling, An Essay for Today: the Scottish New Towns, 1947 to 1997. Edinburgh: Rutland Press, 1997, p. 59.

96. Philip Opher and Clinton Bird, British New Towns: architecture and urban design. Oxford: Joint Centre for Urban Design, Oxford Polytechnic, p. 9.

97. C. H. Cowan, op. cit. [89].

98. Op. cit. [1].

99. Interview, op. cit. [29].

100. This comes from an anecdote told by Alex Kerr (ibid.). He recalled visiting Cumbernauld with Copcutt in the mid‐1960s, after he had moved to the Scottish Office and Copcutt had moved to Dublin. Inspecting the scene when Phase 1 was being constructed, Copcutt noted wistfully that ‘at least we got a tiny wee bit of it’.

101. P. R. Banham, op. cit. [16], p. 170.

102. For example, Peter Katz, The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community. New York: McGraw‐Hill Professional, 1993; Katie Williams, Urban intensification policies in England: problems and contradictions. Land Use Policy 16 (1999) 167–78; Richard Rogers and Richard Burdett, Let’s cram more into the city. New Statesman 13, 606 (2000) 25–7; E. Talen, op. cit. [20].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John R. Gold

*John R. Gold is Professor of Urban Geography at Oxford Brookes University and a member of the University’s Institute for Historical and Cultural Research. In 1999, he won the AESOP Prize for the ‘Best Article in a Journal or Collection of Papers Published in Europe’. His most recent books, single or co‐authored, are The Experience of Modernism: modern architects and the future city, 1928–53 (Spon, 1997), Landscapes of Defence (Prentice Hall, 2000), Representing the Environment (Routledge, 2004) and Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851–2000 (Ashgate Press, 2005). Two other books are forthcoming: The Practice of Modernism: modern architects and urban transformation, 1954–72, (Spon, 2006); and the co‐edited Olympic Cities: urban planning, city agendas and the World’s Games, 1896 to the present (Studies in History, Planning and the Environment series, Routledge, 2007).