Hidden Cumbernauld.

[Jamesie1970]

It strikes me that it might be of interest to see what the people displaced the M8 construction and the like were getting moved to.
Back then, it was called the Future!
And before I get the usual barrage of put downs and disparagement, remember that that first images come from a time when a Cumbernaulder would arrive in Glasgow and see a building site that we knew wasnt gonna be finished.

What Id like to show in future is whats still in the town from before its construction, and how some of the New Town is worth a shufti.

This is an as yet incomplete Town Centre in about 1968


Heres an artists impression of happy residents interacting with the environment


And her is a Model of how it wouldve looked if theyd finished the original plans


I'll add some photos from my next visit. Be warned!

[crusty_bint]

love the model! you don't happen to have a larger version do you?

[Beavis64]

I moved to cumbernauld from sighthill when i was 4, i'd love to see some old pics if anyone has them.

[Jamesie1970]

love the model! you don't happen to have a larger version do you?

Sorry, no.
Ive meant to start this thread but Ive only got small images at the mo.
Except for..

Most are like..

Ive these tiny ones from the original proposal document..


But Ive heard that size isnt everything.

[glasgowken]

You won't get any put downs on here Jamesie

[crusty_bint]

tehe cool, don't get if you don't ask!

[Jamesie1970]

You won't get any put downs on here Jamesie

Thanks.

As Im on a roll, heres a couple of equally small imagest hat prove ther is some history to the place.
Check the date...


I think this map is from the 20s. I find it interesting as it shows Fannyside Road (fnarr, fnarr) would link to what is now Broom Road and plough through my old home.

And I got this from the YMCA website. This old building is in the middle of Kildrum. Those of you on the Cobblestones thread, take note too...

[Cyclo2000]

My links. There aren't many...but there are some great pics.


http://www.open2.net/modernity/3_10.htm

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kilsyth/cumbernauld-1.htm

http://www.ablab.org/cumbernauld/


The last one is a stonker. Also, if you check out the original thread there's some interesting links there.

The pertinent things to know about the toonie are
A It's in the wrong place
B There was supposed to be a windbreak
C The genius in charge buggered off to Ireland half way through.

"in 1967, the town centre’s architect, Geoffrey Copcutt, gave Cumbernauld Britain’s first indoor shopping mall , and

"the fullest realisation of megastructure as an avant-garde urbanist conception." "

[Jamesie1970]

Hullo again Cyclo.

I couldnt figure how to post a link, but yeah that gairspace one is the Daddy.

[Jamesie1970]

My links. There aren't many...but there are some great pics.


http://www.open2.net/modernity/3_10.htm

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/kilsyth/cumbernauld-1.htm

http://www.ablab.org/cumbernauld/


The last one is a stonker. Also, if you check out the original thread there's some interesting links there.

The pertinent things to know about the toonie are
A It's in the wrong place
B There was supposed to be a windbreak
C The genius in charge buggered off to Ireland half way through.

"in 1967, the town centre’s architect, Geoffrey Copcutt, gave Cumbernauld Britain’s first indoor shopping mall , and

"the fullest realisation of megastructure as an avant-garde urbanist conception." "

On closer reading...
A They talked of building where the Train Station is, but couldnt because of ?old Mines and ?Railway plans, and a feeling that Railways were gonna be a thing of the past.
B A windbreak was to be The Carbrain Spine. The earth for it was shifted to Palicerigg. There was also to be some sort of construction Copcutt called a wing?
C Copcutt moved to Northern Ireland to do a New Town near Derry/ Londonderry, to be called Craigavon. Then he fell out with Stormont. There is in Co Meath a housing project in a town called Ashbourne he did start and finish. My wifes family live near there. Maybe should have a look.

Its amazing that only a Third of the original plans were completed! I imagine Gerry Anderson would have been proud!

[Cyclo2000]

By the time the first phase was committed, my train was departing Glasgow for Belfast, and a second chance to make a city of our time. Meanwhile, back at the Big Hoose, a near top-to –bottom revamp left the Centre under other management. What next? Reyner Banham's 'Age of the Masters' gives the answer "...there won't be much next. What has been built so far is a small fraction of Copcuttt's original design, but it seems all that is going to be built in this particular mega-mode."
And, although Banham doesn't say it, this fragment- still big enough to define a future- was shorn not only of its second row of pylons and penthouses, with a host of functional and spatial consequences, but also of the mosaic of sites I had tucked in for flea-markets, the winter-garden front to the tiers of offices, the tube roof illuminating the chapel, the glistening 'airplane wing' which was to have tilted open over the library, and even the wall of dwellings with upper promenade designed to curtain the parkland. The curved and stepped terraces of apartments and earthworks arrayed at the 'Glasgow' portal, I always knew would take a lot of shaking and moving to make happen. But countless minor delights clothing the concept were not so much 'simplified' as simply missed.
Copcutt in 1995, From "Rebuilding Scotland" by Miles Glendinning

http://www.rls.org.uk/database/results.php?field=who&searchterm=%22Geoffrey+Copcutt%22&searchdb=scran
[url]
http://www.buildingconnections.co.uk/re ... ory/20.htm[/url]

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001971/Downie/Downie12/Downie12.html

[Jamesie1970]

By the time the first phase was committed, my train was departing Glasgow for Belfast, and a second chance to make a city of our time. Meanwhile, back at the Big Hoose, a near top-to –bottom revamp left the Centre under other management. What next? Reyner Banham's 'Age of the Masters' gives the answer "...there won't be much next. What has been built so far is a small fraction of Copcuttt's original design, but it seems all that is going to be built in this particular mega-mode."
And, although Banham doesn't say it, this fragment- still big enough to define a future- was shorn not only of its second row of pylons and penthouses, with a host of functional and spatial consequences, but also of the mosaic of sites I had tucked in for flea-markets, the winter-garden front to the tiers of offices, the tube roof illuminating the chapel, the glistening 'airplane wing' which was to have tilted open over the library, and even the wall of dwellings with upper promenade designed to curtain the parkland. The curved and stepped terraces of apartments and earthworks arrayed at the 'Glasgow' portal, I always knew would take a lot of shaking and moving to make happen. But countless minor delights clothing the concept were not so much 'simplified' as simply missed.
Copcutt in 1995, From "Rebuilding Scotland" by Miles Glendinning

Thats from
>clicky<

..which I have. Im sad.

[Jamesie1970]

Found these on YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2tihOELOcY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_JBfsli ... ed&search=[/url]

God Bless unexpected days off.

[Cyclo2000]

"They talked of building where the Train Station is, but couldnt because of ?old Mines and ?Railway plans, and a feeling that Railways were gonna be a thing of the past."

I've heard a different version to the ones expressed in your comment and the planners notes.(viz there wasnae enuff space)

I've heard it explained away as a zoning struggle. C-nauld was halfway split between two councils and the dominant one (Monkland I presume) wanted the INDUSTRIAL rates as they're much more lucrative than the domestic rates. Therefore the toonie got pamped on the hilltop instead of down in the valley. The Carbrain spine didnae get built cos the other cooncil (Lanarkshire?) bulit houses where it shoulda been. It was gonna be a bank with trees on the top, I believe.
The abscence of the banking and the non appearance of the other two thirds of Copcatts (admittedly wild) scheme left much of the toonie a windswept, desolate deck.

What do you think of our chances of looking some of these old geezers up? Maybe we could set up a meeting somewhere...the theatre would seem ideal. And this is the 50th year of Cumbernauld....

[Cyclo2000]

Lookee here...
William Derek Collier Lyddon,
CB, DLitt, BA (Arch), DipTP, FRSGS, FRTPI (Rtd).

Born: 17.11.25, Loughton, Essex; m., Marian Louise Kaye Charlesworth; 2 d.

Education: Wrekin College; University College, London.

Career: Depute Chief Architect Planner, Cumbernauld Development Corporation; Chief Architect Planner, Skelmersdale Development Corporation; Chief Planner, Scottish Development Department, 1967-85.
President, International Society of City and Regional Planners, 1981-84;
Chairman, The Planning Exchange, 1992-95; Acting Chairman, Edinburgh Old Town Renewal Trust, 1997-99;
Vice Chairman, Edinburgh World Heritage Trust, 1999-2004.

Address: (h.) 31 Blackford Road, Edinburgh EH9 2DT. Telephone:-0131-667 2266.