Second Premiated Design
Competition: Scottish Technical College
Entries for a Paisley technical college competition (assessor R. Gardner-Medwin; prizes, (1) £1,500 (2) £1,000 (3) and £500) must be submitted by March 27. Questions must reach J. and A. Gardner, Clerks to the Governors, 3, County Place, Renfrewshire, by September 3. Applicants for the conditions (deposit £2) must send their registration numbers or the numbers of the receipts issued to them by the Architects’ Registration Council in respect of the admission fee.
Architects' Journal, 14th June, 1956, p. 664
Paisley: “An Example of Modern Architecture"
The first prize of £1,500 in the competition for new buildings for the Paisley Technical College, for which over 500 [corrected as 135 in 9th May 1957 issue, p. 700] architects entered, has been awarded to Alison and Hutchison and Partners, Edinburgh, whose design is illustrated above. The second and third prizes, totalling £1,500, will be shared by three competitors: G. P. Hutchinson, K. H. Murta and J. B. Hall, Sunderland; James Cubitt and Partners, London; Claus Seligmann, London, in association with J. Warren Chalk and Ronald Herron, students. These designs are illustrated on later pages. The assessor was Professor R. Gardner-Medwin, assisted by T. A. Jeffryes, Chief Architect and Chief Technical Planner to the Department of Health for Scotland, and Robert Morton, Deputy Chief Architect and Technical Planner. In his report the assessor said of the first prize-winning project: “The design of this project is quite outstanding. If the building and landscaping can be carried out in the spirit of this design, Paisley will have an example of modern architecture and town planning which visitors may travel many miles to see.” The recommendations for the award of the second and third prizes was, the assessor said, much more difficult: there were, however, “three designs, very different in their approach but each equally skilful and imaginative in their own way,” which he considered were worthy of sharing equally the second and third prizes. The assessor will later make a fuller report, in which he will refer to several other schemes which he found worthy of mention. The Governors of the college have decided to proceed with the winning design. Further illustrations on pages 659 to 665.’
The assessor’s report says: “A long unit of four storeys (administration and classrooms) is only slightly recessed from High Street, but it has a partly open, partly glazed ground floor which extends the entrance terrace through to an enclosed court at a lower level. The space formed by this court is very attractive and an interesting landscape effect could be achieved. The planning is competent and expansion of the chemistry unit at a second stage has been well considered. The architectural expression is bold and masculine. It has not been very fully worked out, but the plan, in spite of weaknesses in circulation, has great potentialities.” Structure is r.c. frame with in situ floor and roof slabs. The concrete upstand wall forms a perimeter beam, faced externally with white mosaic.
Architects' Journal, 2nd May 1957, p. 652, pp. 659-665
