HINTERLAND REBUILDING BLOCKS
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O bservers a knowledge of Scotland’s built environment or a taste for off-the-beaten track adventures will be well aware of St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross, near Helensburgh. One of the most famous ruins in the British Isles, it was built in the 1960s as a training college for Roman Catholic priests. Designed by modernists Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan of the celebrated Glasgow i rm Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, it’s been lying abandoned in an ever-more advanced state of decrepitude for nearly three decades.
David Pollock talks to NVA’s Angus Farquhar about Hinterland, the ambitious new project to bring St Peter’s Seminary back to life For eight years, Angus Farquhar (creative director of public art organisation NVA) has been intent on returning this iconic but largely unexplored building to our use, taking up the mantle from the late Gareth Hoskins’ original plans for the place. Some years ago NVA toured an exhibition entitled The Invisible College to venues including Glasgow’s Lighthouse which made clear the case for restoration. Not least, this was done through a powerful i lm reel which showed Murray Grigor’s 1972 Space & Light – a tranquil examination of this space while it was still used by the church
Generated image of the night-time experience at Hinterland 36 THE LIST 4 Feb–7 Apr 2016
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