Cumbernauld, Seafar, General
General View
Site Name Cumbernauld, Seafar, General
Classification General View
Canmore ID 70556
Site Number NS77SE 53
NGR NS 7556 7481
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/70556
- Council North Lanarkshire
- Parish Cumbernauld
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Cumbernauld And Kilsyth
- Former County Dunbartonshire
Publication Account (1997)
In reaction to the segregated 'neighbourhood unit' planning of previous New Towns, Cumbernauld's designers clustered its first housing areas right next to the Town Centre. But, in contrast with the latter's architectural extravagance, this housing was studiedly unobstrusive. Two-storey pitched-roof rows, designed by the Development Corporation's own architects, predominated, but these were punctuated by other types designed by architects such as Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. The most celebrated of CDC's own schemes was the abruptly contoured and lavishly landscapd Seafar 2 development (1961-3), whose 147 two-storey dwellings featured complex split-level plans. As a visual punctuation for this ridge-top site, groups of sleek Bison point blocks wee built in the mid-1960s. Cumbernauld's band of original housing developments, together with the Town Centre at its heart, constitutes Scotland's most significant ensemble of postwar urban architecture and planning. (Fig. 4.43).
Information from 'Rebuilding Scotland: The Postwar Vision, 1945-75', (1997).