Not East Kilbride, but A listed buildings also in South Lanarkshire, not too far away – indeed, it is South Lanarkshire’s council headquarters. Lanark County buildings is the original, confusing name, given that it is located in Hamilton!
In the Sunday Herald 2021 list of 20 favourite modern Scottish buildings, the 17 storey tower in the International style is straight out of New York. The architect was David Gordon Bannerman, who worked for the county (and who curiously does not appear to have designed anything similar, just a couple of schools which have mostly been replaced, with the exception of Caldervale high from 1970).
The use of glass, concrete and steel, the regularity of detail and lack of ornamentation, the simple form are typical of the style.
Apart from the tower, there is also a large formal plaza with a central pond running the width of the plot, and the linked cylindrical Council chambers building (“podium”) contrasts nicely.
Susan O’Connor argues in The Architecture of Public Service (Twentieth Century Society, 2018) that such formal areas were part of the aesthetic of Le Corbusier and others who established this style, and its purpose was ceremonial. There are no benches after all, and the entrance to the building is actually over a bridge above the garden, not through it. These kinds of gardens are just as much about status as the redundant columns and fancy staircases of 19th century town halls, such as that in Glasgow. OK, they don’t insist on sticking the formal rooms up on the top floors in the old way, but there is still a fancy banqueting hall with a black timber block ceiling interspersed with recessed golden mosaic coffering, and full length tweed curtains, matching carpet and wallpaper, plus contrasting cedar panelling.
In many other places, such plazas have been cleared to make way for car parking, for example the Arts Tower in Sheffield…
Slate is used on external surfaces, a reminder of Lanarkshire’s mining history. There are county crests on walls and etched into glazed doors, which make the building a bit more local, and a little less International.
And like other civic buildings of the time, clerks and managers are not banished to dark, back corridors – they can now enjoy views from picture windows high above the surrounding landscape, a more democratic approach mirrored in better staff facilities eg canteens.
