Building Modern Scotland

Combining architectural and social history, this open access book tells for the first time the in-depth story of Scotland’s new towns.

One of the most significant episodes in modern architectural, urban and social history, Scotland’s postwar new towns offered new housing, new ways of life and new jobs. Begun between the late 1940s and the late 1960s, the new towns – East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Cumbernauld, Livingston and Irvine – were a key element of the planned Welfare State, attracting international attention and widespread publicity. These were places of architectural innovation, and economic and social change.

Building Modern Scotland tells a new history of the new towns, combining architectural and social history to illustrate what was planned, what was built, and how these places were experienced by the communities who lived and worked in them. It positions the new towns at the heart of modern Scottish history, showing how they represented an ambition to make a modern, transformed nation. The book surveys each new town’s planning and design before turning to key topics such as housing, family life, work and opportunity, and community.

Drawing on archives and oral history, the book will appeal to historians of modern architecture and design as well as readers interested in modern social history. It provides a new account of modern Scotland, its buildings, places and people, and argues that a better understanding of the new towns’ history and value should inform present-day decision-making.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Author Biography

Alistair Fair is Reader in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh. Lynn Abrams is Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow. Kat Breen is a tutor in Architectural History and Heritage at the University of Edinburgh. Miles Glendinning is Professor of Architectural Conservation at the University of Edinburgh. Diane Watters is an historian and author at Historic Environment Scotland. Valerie Wright is Lecturer in Modern Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh.