The Glasgow School of Art

St Peter’s Seminary

St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross was built 1961-66 as an educational institution for Catholic priests. It was designed in a Brutalist style by the architects Andy MacMillan (1928-2014) and Isi Metzstein (1928-2012) of the Glasgow firm Gillespie, Kidd and Coia.

The building was closed down in 1980 and subsequently became Scotland’s most famous modernist ruin, sparking entrenched debates over whether or not the building was a failure from the outset and what was to blame for its closure and lack of adaptive reuse – institutional, economic, technological, or architectural factors.

Links to recordings

https://vimeo.com/191816376

https://vimeo.com/191816167