ONE of Scotland’s
greatest modern buildings, which has lain in ruins for 25 years, is
finally to be given a new lease of life in a £10 million redevelopment
plan by a leading Scottish arts charity.
For
years there has been speculation over the future of the A-listed St
Peter’s Seminary in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, named as one of the
world’s most endangered sites by the World Monument Fund.
The building, considered a masterpiece of
modernism, was designed by the leading Scottish architectural firm
Gillespie, Kidd and Coia for the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1966, but was
closed in 1980, and has lain abandoned and vandalised ever since.
Now arts charity NVA has acquired the
building on “conditional missives” from the Catholic Church and will
seek to raise £10m in the next two years.
The money will transform the site into a
place for education, art displays, performances and exhibitions,
consolidating and making safe the ruined building with “pristine”
working spaces within it.
The deal includes the surrounding Kilmahew
Woodlands, and the company says it will be “bringing its internal spaces
back to life, reviving the 140-acre woodlands and in turn redefining
the nature of public rural space in Scotland through an extensive,
artist-led programme.”
At present the seminary, whose architects
were Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan, is a ruin, with fallen debris
scattered about, unsafe floors, and dangerous roofs.
For some time there has been intense debate among architects and others about what to do with the seminary structure.
Ideas have ranged from demolishing it to converting it into a hotel.
Angus Farquhar, the creative director of NVA, said: “This is the best chance this building has got.
“This is the best way of doing it: we have
two years to raise the money and we have the building, and now we have a
free run at it, and can begin working with all kinds of national
partners to make this happen.
“The eventual purchase is for a price from the Catholic Church we are very happy with, and will not be disclosed.”
Mr Farquhar has been inspired by restoration
projects such as the Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park in Germany, where a
former industrial wasteland has been transformed over more than 10 years
into parkland.
He has also been influenced by the El Matadero in Madrid, a former slaughterhouse that is now a cultural centre.
NVA is currently developing the master-plan
for the estate with the support of a £100,000 grant from Creative
Scotland’s National Lottery Fund.
Mr Farquhar added: “The opportunity to
purchase Kilmahew-St Peter’s concludes years of speculation about the
seminary buildings and marks the beginning of a new future for the site
and the many people for whom it has significance.
“We envisage the first permanent artist-led
space of its type in the UK, a new form of generative public art that
develops work from a long-term creative dialogue with the users and
radically accepts the value of the building in its current form,
expanding an ‘unfinished’ narrative that will change over time.”
Ronnie Convery, spokesman for the
Archdiocese of Glasgow, added: “The NVA proposal represents the best
solution for the site, allowing the acclaimed building to be
consolidated and partly restored to the benefit of the local community.
“The Archdiocese is delighted that after many decades a realistic solution appears to be available.”
Andrew Dixon, chief executive of Creative
Scotland, said: “This is a visionary and confidently ambitious project
based on a site of international significance.
“It offers the potential to provide a place
for artists to work in an iconic landscape and to provide a sustainable
new attraction for Scotland.”
The seminary was occupied for just 13 years before closing in 1980.
It was subsequently used for five years in
the 1980’s as a drug rehabilitation unit. The buildings then fell into a
state of disrepair.
In 1993, the then Secretary of State listed the seminary as being of special architectural importance.
The World Monuments Fund, which works to
preserve major endangered cultural landmarks, added St Peter’s to its
register of most-at-risk buildings in June 2007.