There’s something about digging through old plans. The crackle of old tracing paper or fabric is incredibly evocative, and that’s even before you get to the smells. As you unroll or unfold each one, the interplay between original vision and what came to be lingers always at the back of the mind.

And for someone who draws, being able to see the actual marks made by the architects is the real thrill. Each line traces not just shapes, but thoughts being formed – and of course, weeks later becoming physical form, be it window, door, or massive retaining wall. The tip of a sharp pencil or Rotring pen is the catalyst for buildings great or small.

Cumbernauld Town Centre is most definitely in this category. As with other projects, my task is to make a dialectogram that captures something of the environment in which we work. And for Concrete Dreams that means the ‘Citadel’ itself, known more colloquially as ‘The Toonie’.

Which is why my first major piece of research for our project was to visit not Cumbernauld itself, but Motherwell, home of the North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre. Archivist Wiebke McGhee was on hand to show me the plans they hold for the Town Centre. ‘Which ones do you wish to see?’ she’d asked. As I didn’t know what I needed to see yet, I just said, ‘All of them.’ And so . . .

Gloves on hands, I shrugged and started to dig through the rolls. The biggest ones stretch out longer than a person’s height and were drawn on old tracing paper. Fragile and flaky, just unrolling them was a precarious process.

But worth it. Covering everything from initial plans to working drawings, I soon had a wealth of references for the Town Centre’s shape and form. Which is good, because this project is going to be one of my most difficult drawing exercises yet.

I found detailed plans too for some of the more notable institutions within the Town Centre. The Golden Eagle Hotel immediately caught my fancy (definitely going in . . .) while Galbraith’s Supermarket also seems to be a place that would hold a lot of narrative.

I also found detailed plans of the iconic cantilevered Penthouses and restaurant. But hands down, my favourite stuff is things like this, where the draughtsman is testing their tip or nib . . .

. . . writing notes on the plans . . .

 

 

. . . or THESE amazing concept works, from early impressions of shape and feel . . .

 

. . . to this kind of stuff, straight out of comics like 2000AD. I couldn’t get very good images with my limited camera (and even more limited capacities as photographer) but we are working on getting better versions, and expect a more extended post on these fascinating, sci-fi tinged relics of municipal utopianism once we do.

 

So, four (or was it five?) hours later I refolded the last of the available plans and slumped into a nearby chair to have a think. I’d sifted through each and every one and my phone storage was bursting at the seams with reference photos.  And what had I learned?

Well. Keep reading these blogs and I’ll do my best to tell you.