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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article