Earlier today The Daily Record announced that a magazine called Urban Realm had decried the new extension at Edinburgh Airport as a carbuncle and awarded it a Zit prize.
Without asking the award winners for comment the paper also explained that the council got an award called a Pock Mark for allowing the B-listed Scottish Provident building to be demolished last year.
In the case of the airport extension the building (which is not yet complete) has been put up to link a fairly basic multi-storey car park to a 1970s hangar. It now houses the new security area in the airport. The Edinburhg Reporter was at the topping out ceremony some time back and took some photos of the interior and exterior. The building is not yet complete and there will be a plaza area to finish it off between the end nearest the trams and the tram stop. The airport is anxious to invest money in the buildings there to attract new airlines and wanted the new building to be put up as quickly as possible. Rather than taking this criticism meekly a spokesman for the airport said: ““Every award is special but to win the Zit Award is a real honour. Our terminal extension was carefully designed to help us accommodate growing passenger numbers.
“It also blends in rather well with our 1970s terminal and multi-storey car park. We don’t think that Urban Realm has hit the spot here, but a zit is part of the growth process and we will take this one on the chin.”
The council found itself backed into a corner when they found out that although the developer of the former Scottish Provident building in St Andrew Square had agreed to keep the facade in place it had actually been demolished.
The building was deregistered by Historic Scotland during the process of demolishing the part behind the facade. The councillors on the Development Management committee expressed their complete displeasure and discomfort when the committee met last week to discuss what to do about the building now. Clearly it is a case of the horse having bolted, and the councillors were unhappy about this and said so. You can watch the coverage of last week’s committee meeting here to hear for yourself what was said.
You can see the former site of the Scottish Provident building on the corner of St Andrew Square opposite Jenners and sure enough the whole building has now been demolished.
So what do you think are the awards justified?
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
No surprises there really. Urban Realm magazine is located in Glasgow. Looking thought the history of these awards, Glasgow City has never won a single one.
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