The ruined St Peter’s Seminary on the outskirts of Glasgow, is all that remains today of a radical 1960’s modernist building. This highly contested site has been the subject of much debate regarding its possible fate since it was abandoned to the forces of nature over 30 years ago. Now Scottish based environmental art agency NVA’s campaign to resuscitate Kilmahew/St Peter’s has received a significant boost, receiving a first-round pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund. What is most fascinating in the regeneration process is the decision to place the surrounding landscape as the conceptual starting point of the project with an emphasis on the landscape as a tool to re-animate the site. Most notable, this project’s boldest innovation is the consideration of this iconic building as a sculptural element within the landscape.

1. 35
Revelling in ruins
Landscape will be the catalyst for the revitalisation
of the admired but ruined St Peter’s Seminary on
the outskirts of Glasgow. ERZ has come up with a
masterplan for the landscape that is unusually fluid
and focuses on engagement and interaction rather
than a range of fixed features.
BY CARINE BRANNAN
Landscape Summer 2015Landscape Summer 201534

2. Landscape Summer 201536 Landscape Summer 2015 37
Feature
might easily be fooled into thinking
that Charles Rennie Mackintosh
is Glasgow’s only architect of note. References to
his work abound throughout the city from his
internationally recognised Glasgow School of Art
to reconstructed houses and tearooms – even to his
stylised typography on posters and shop fronts.
But this may all be about to change. Move over
Mack – there’s a new kid in town!
The ruined St Peter’s Seminary, at Kilmahew Glen
on the outskirts of Glasgow, is all that remains
today of a radical 1960s modernist building.
This highly contested site has been the subject of
much debate regarding its possible fate since it was
abandoned to the forces of nature over 30 years
ago. Now Scottish-based environmental art agency
NVA’s campaign to resuscitate Kilmahew/St Peter’s
has had a significant boost, receiving a first-round
pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
What is most fascinating about the regeneration
process is the decision to use the surrounding
landscape as the conceptual starting point of the
project with an emphasis on the landscape as a
tool to re-animate the site. Most notably, this
project’s boldest innovation is the consideration
of the building as a sculptural element within
the landscape.
Project History
The Kilmahew/St Peter’s site is 20 miles northwest
of Glasgow, close to Cardross village in Argyll and
Bute and overlooking the Clyde Valley. The 40ha
south-facing site is predominantly wooded and
lies within the Green Belt. The landscape has seen
successive reshaping over centuries and contains
sections of native woodlands and distinctive river
gorges. There is evidence of built and natural forms
throughout the site but these have been variously
subsumed by unmanaged vegetation and decay.
From the thirteenth century the land belonged
to the Lairds of Napier with the last Laird forced to
sell off land. By 1820 the remains of the estate were
bought by the Burns family, who were industrialists
and shipping merchants. They undertook extensive
improvements to the estate, transforming the
surrounding farmland into parkland. Kilmahew
was redesigned into a Victorian ‘romantic’
ornamental estate with Kilmahew House as the
centrepiece, a baronial Victorian mansion built
from sandstone that had been quarried locally.
VISITORS TO
GLASGOW
Image©:3–ERZ4–NeilDavidsoncourtesyofNVA
Image©:1–CristinaArmstrongcourtesyofNVA2–JamesJohnsoncourtesyofNVA
Some original Victorian planting still exists, such
as invasive Rhododendron ponticum, whilst much
has long since disappeared. In 1866, John Fleming,
a renowned gardener who had previously worked
at Cliveden House on the Thames, designed a walled
garden including heated glasshouses dedicated to
growing vegetables and a wide range of fruits.
The partially collapsed frames of these glasshouses
remain. During the late nineteenth century, a
number of exotic tree species were introduced from
around the world, particularly from Japan. In 1919
the estate was sold again, with the new owners
undertaking further modernisation. Recently local
volunteers have brought the walled gardens back
into agricultural production.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow bought the
estatein1948,usingKilmahewHouseasatheological
college, and in 1958 the Archbishop commissioned
St Peter’s Seminary. Developed by the Scottish
architectural firm Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, its
architects Isi Metzstein and Andy McMillan
produced innovative designs for a modernist
concrete construction. It was hailed as one of the
finest modern buildings of the day, and Metzstein
and McMillan cited Le Corbusier’s La Tourette
monastery as being amongst their influences.
Their radical and daring complex of buildings
was designed to wrap around the existing mansion
house. Their design won the prestigious RIBA
Architecture award in 1967.
But by 1984 the seminary had been abandoned,
with severe weather damage continuing to take its
toll on the building. Lack of land management led
to further deterioration of the surrounding estate
and parkland. The seminary buildings were
attracting international recognition, receiving
Category ‘A’ listing from Historic Scotland in
recognition of their architectural importance, and
in 2005 the World Monument Fund listed St Peter’s
as one of the world’s most endangered buildings.
With funding from Historic Scotland, Avanti
Architects was commissioned to complete a
conservation assessment and cost report for the
buildings and ERZ Landscape Architects tasked
with undertaking a landscape overview study.
These reports helped inform dialogue regarding
future ambitions and the development of a creative
response to the site. ERZ’s study, carried out in
parallel to ecological and preliminary woodland
assessments, led to a fuller understanding of the
site and the qualities of the complex landscape.
Meanwhile, NVA, working with Urban Splash
and funded by the Scottish Arts Council, created
a series of art commissions for the site. Further
attempts to develop the site commercially,
including a proposal by Urban Splash, failed to
provide sufficient financial returns, leaving NVA
in sole discussion with the diocese.
2 – The overgrown landscape has
a sense of mystery and concealed
elements that ERZ intends to
preserve
3 – Evocative but sad – the derelict
building in its woodland setting
4 – The landscape contains many
elements that predate the seminary.
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3. Landscape Summer 201538 Landscape Summer 2015 39
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The masterplan
ERZ led the masterplan development, describing
it as a ‘model for a new creative and productive
landscape’ and in 2012 the proposal won the
Neighbourhood Planning Category in the
Landscape Institute Awards.
‘The project, instead of focusing exclusively on the
building, considers this remarkable building and
its landscape setting together, creating a public
landscape that becomes a locus for an ongoing
creative process,’ said the judges. ‘In this way the
landscape leads the regeneration. The aim is to
shift people’s relationship to the landscape from
one of being a passive observer or detached
consumer to having an active physical or
intellectual engagement.’
The masterplan evolved from the earlier Kilmahew/
St Peter’s Commission Plan (May 2010), which sets
out the rationale for revitalising the site. Including
a review of the site’s historical context, the condition
of the built heritage and natural landscape plus
presentingexamplesofprecedentprojects,this
document acted as a statement of intent for NVA’s
future ambitions. The masterplan also responds to
and is informed by the earlier landscape overview
study and art commissions for the site. It aims to
introduce incremental placemaking, allowing
Kilmahew to become an ‘other’ space where people
can enjoy experiences that they do not have in
their day-to-day lives. The presumption is that by
redefining the idea of ‘territory’ you can enhance
personal experiences beyond the landscape itself.
Rolf Roscher, director of ERZ, describes the
approach as shifting people’s relationship with the
landscape from one of being a passive observer or
detached consumer, to having a more active
physical, sensory and intellectual engagement
helping to build a strong sense of ‘place’.
The masterplan focuses on two main landscape
interventions that are creative responses to the
earlier pieces of research designed to provoke
personal experience of the site. Firstly, Kilmahew’s
landscape should retain a sense of surprise and
discovery through a deliberate management of
a sequence of ‘reveals’ and ‘thresholds’. ERZ’s
landscape overview study describes the power
of the site as resulting from its enclosed nature
and the sudden unexpected revealing of long
and panoramic views. Secondly, the site should
maintain the qualities of the ‘interim state’ of
certain locations, such as the on-going colonisation
bybirchtreeswithintheestate.Plannedregeneration
of the Kilmahew site should be introduced
gradually and sequentially to allow a holistic, rather
than managed, transformation to take place.
Two distinct public and academic engagements
which provide creative and innovative inputs have
also helped inform the masterplan development.
Firstly, NVA, in partnership with Creative Scotland
and the British Council Scotland, presented a
programme of events responding to the themes of
restoration and reuse of St Peter’s at La Biennale di
Venezia’s 2010 International Architecture Exhibition.
A book, To Have and To Hold: Future of a Contested
Landscape by Gerrie van Noord sets out the
arguments and ambitions for the Kilmahew/St
Peter’s site resulting from the Biennale
conversations. Its collection of essays focuses on
preserving the building and imagining the
landscape as a place of permanent ‘flux’.
Secondly, NVA partnered with Glasgow, Strathclyde
and Edinburgh Universities to develop an Arts and
Humanities Research Council funded project.
Called ‘The Invisible College’, this involved hosting
a wide range of events, exhibitions and interventions
in response to the buildings and historic grounds.
Research focused on the ‘site as subject matter’,
with a vision to re-imagine and transform the
landscape, combining community activities,
university-led research and contemporary
arts practice.
The masterplan represents a long-term vision,
‘anticipating the continuing generative, artistic and
research activities, whilst retaining flexibility for
change’. The initial phase will make the site safe
and accessible with immediate intervention to
remove invasive species and create environments
for new planting and management, thus enabling
remnants of earlier landscaping to be retained.
Further phases focus on several key aspects of the
landscape. The woodlands are in poor condition,
lacking structure, and ERZ has identified sections
that demand different interventions responding
to the landscape’s origin, condition and qualities.
Three key developments include restoration of the
walled garden, development of an upper meadow
to provide a flexible growing space and a lower
meadow that is earmarked for camping. The
walled garden will provide space for cultivation /...
5 – The masterplan includes the
walled garden, which volunteers
have already brought back into
agricultural production.
6 – The landscape will be the
catalyst for regeneration of the
building.
6
5
Images©:5,6–ERZ

4. Landscape Summer 2015 41Landscape Spring 201540
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and will be the main focus for visitors to the site.
The redesign retains some existing elements such
as apple trees, remnants of a yew hedge and a giant
redwood Sequoiadendron giganteum with the
addition of a hedge to define the northern boundary.
A series of meandering pathways will navigate
the site, creating alternative ways to explore and
expose the landscape. This new layout will reveal
the complex layering of the site’s built and natural
history. The existing slope that is the setting for
seminary buildings will be re-profiled to establish
a clean, sculpted landform, incorporating a
number of stepped terraces, whilst a contemporary
reinterpretation of the remains of the Japanese
mountain garden will be created, revealing features
from the earlier Victorian parkland.
The future
Glasgow, desperate to shake off its industrial past,
sought new opportunities to represent itself.
Architectural heritage, a rich source of the city’s
pride, offered a fitting opportunity to present
post-industrial Glasgow as a dynamic and creative
city. Step forward C.R. Mackintosh, who although
moderately popular during his early career in
Glasgow left the city, disillusioned, when interest
in his pioneering style waned. Glasgow also turned
its back on Kilmahew/St Peter’s with the building
only occupied for 14 years before being left to its
present demise. Is the circle now complete?
In late 2013, NVA was awarded a first-round pass
from the Heritage Lottery Fund. This released
£565,000 of development funding, leading to a
second-stage submission for £3 million in 2015.
Planning Listed Building Consents for the designs
have been approved and in a gesture of goodwill
the archdiocese has conditionally agreed to donate
the site for the public good. NVA announced the
design team to take forward the plans, including
Avanti Architects, ERZ Landscape Architects and
NORD Architecture. Angus Farquhar, Creative
Director of NVA, describes the masterplan as
a ‘20 year aspiration – a manifesto for landscape
intervention’. With a planned opening date
scheduled for 2017, the new designs will provide
an arts venue, a permanent exhibition, a ‘field
station’ that will include informal teaching spaces,
more than four kilometres of accessible woodland
paths and a productive garden.
What makes this contested site of Kilmahew/
St Peter’s so powerful is the juxtaposition of
Brutalist architecturewiththeremnantsofa
Victorian bucolic landscape. The building, beloved
by architects, provokes strong emotions in some
critics who would rather it was razed to the ground.
There’sa certain irony that in order to reinvent this
architectural icon, the surrounding landscape has
now become the catalyst for its regeneration.
The real test of the Kilmahew/St Peter’s project will
be to present a new form of landscape; one that can
support and nurture fresh responses and which
attracts support from not just local communities
in and around Glasgow but beyond. •
Further reading: Various documents, reports and
videos, including those mentioned in the article,
can be found on the NVA website nva.org.uk
Carine Brannan jointly runs the Landscape Interface
Studio in the School of Architecture and Landscape
at Kingston University.
7 – The complex layering of the site’s
built and natural heritage will be
emphasised by the masterplan.
8 – ERZ’s approach recognises what
a magical place this is.
Image©:7,8–AlSmithcourtesyofNVA
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