Cumbernauld: Beauty & Brutalism (Cultural Travel Guide to Scotland's Controversial New Town)

Voted the World's Best New Town in 1967, Cumbernauld has provoked more discussion over its planning and architecture than any other town in Scotland, and arguably Great Britain. From 1959 onwards the original village found itself surrounded by dual carriageways as new housing developments sprung up to solve the post-war housing crisis in Glasgow. Urban planners plotted a new way of living whilst architects ditched standard housing designs to create a new blueprint for accommodating the town's first citizens. However, Cumbernauld's masterpiece, and eventual folly, was the Centre, an enormous Brutalist building designed by Geoffrey Copcutt that housed all the facilities of a standard town centre: shops; offices; council buildings; apartments; and a hotel. Showered with architectural awards in its early years and studied by architects to this day, the building has not matured well with age. Voted Britain's Most Hated Building in 2005 it has now been listed for demolition.
This film takes a look at the various elements that make Cumbernauld such a fascinating and polarising town: the green spaces; the brutalist architecture; the Roman remains; and Andy Scott's incredible sculpture Arria. I also pay a visit to the cultural hub that is the Cumbernauld Alternative Network to witness the projects that Leigh and Alan are promoting to the youth of the town.

Jonathan Wheeler
Travel Obscurer
Filmed February 2023
Music licensed through Artlist

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