Cumbernauld: The Town We Let Down

Frazer Macdonald Hay
Jun 22
6 min read

In 1967, a Jury from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) declared Cumbernauld New Town in Scotland to be the “Western World’s highest achievement in urban design for modern human needs.” It received the inaugural R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award for Community Architecture—$25,000 towards a scholarship in community architecture, and a modernist sculpture titled Three Columns by Roy Gussow.

Cumbernauld wasn’t just praised—it was seen as a prototype for the future of urban life.

I discovered this story not in an archive or museum, but in a letter tucked away among my grandfather’s belongings. Norman Duncan Macdonald, an engineer and part of Cumbernauld’s original population, had saved the letter like a small monument. My aunt passed it to me, saying, “This might interest you.” It did more than that—it stirred a deep pride and a long-simmering frustration.

I lived in Cumbernauld in the 1970s. I remember its promise, its optimism, its strange beauty. I also remember how quickly people turned on it. Like so many towns born of modernist ambition, it became an easy punchline. A “carbuncle.” A “dump.” The once-futuristic town centre was mocked, neglected, then condemned.

In 2023, Cumbernauld was named the “ugliest town in Scotland.” In 2024, The Telegraph called it “a dump.” The Guardian, along with others, called for the demolition of its town centre. The Carbuncle Award—created to shame buildings and towns deemed aesthetically or socially offensive—was finally scrapped after 17 years. But its stigma lives on.

What happened to the sculpture? What happened to the scholarship? Where is the public memory of this moment when the world saw Cumbernauld not as a failure but as a vision?

A Town of Ideas

Cumbernauld was designed to meet the housing crisis of post-war Glasgow, but it was more than just a relocation site. It was a social experiment grounded in architectural ambition. Its creators envisioned a self-contained town where people could live, work, shop, and play within walking distance, without ever needing to cross a busy road. It prioritized pedestrians. It offered privacy and green space. It aspired toward beauty in everyday life.

The AIA jury noted:

“Cumbernauld has clearly exploited to the maximum its potential as a work of community architecture without sacrificing human values… it has recognized and enhanced these values as an integral part of its design objectives.”

This was not an idle compliment—it was a blueprint for a different kind of urban life.

The Betrayal of a Vision

But we didn’t protect that vision. We let it decay, both physically and symbolically. Local authorities, planners, politicians, residents—even some architects—joined the chorus of ridicule. They demanded demolition when they should have demanded maintenance. They dismissed Cumbernauld’s design as outdated rather than misunderstood.

I witnessed the same pattern in Gateshead when its infamous car park was demolished. The brutalist icon was erased, and Gateshead joined the homogenised club of shopping-centred nowhere towns, stripped of distinctiveness and spatial memory.

Do we want Cumbernauld to suffer the same fate?

Reclaiming the Town

There is still time to rediscover Cumbernauld’s potential. Conservation and imagination should not be opposing forces. We need investment in the town and its people—not in flattening history, but in renewing it. The town centre, though tired and underused, remains a remarkable piece of design. It deserves repair, adaptation, respect—not ridicule.

We need to rediscover the sculpture, account for the scholarship, and publicly commemorate this astonishing moment when a small Scottish town was seen as a world leader in community architecture. Not as nostalgia, but as a reminder: Cumbernauld was never just an accident of poor taste. It was—and still is—a place full of intent, courage, and human-centred design.

We let the town down. But we can stop letting it go.

The Letter:

Washington, D.C. May 10

A Jury from the American Institute of Architects has selected Cumbernauld New Town in Scotland as the Western World’s highest achievement in urban design for modern human needs.

The architects and planners of Cumbernauld were chosen to be honoured by the first R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award for Community Architecture, which confers $25,000 and an original sculpture. The $25,000 will be used to create a scholarship in community architecture.

Chief architect and planning officer for Cumbernauld since 1962 has been Dudley R. Leaker, an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Associate of the Royal Incorporation of Architects Scotland. He succeeded L. Hugh Wilson, a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects who held the post from the beginning of the project 11 years ago.

The Reynolds Award will be presented formally on June 19th in ceremonies in Cumbernauld, with officials of the AIA, The RIBA and Cumbernauld participating.

Cumbernauld is being developed on a hilltop amid rural fields to absorb a part of the population of overcrowded Glasgow 14 miles away. Every phase of this compact community of eventually 70,000 population was carefully planned in what the AIA called, “the most comprehensive project of community architecture to date”.

As a “new town” Cumbernauld was designed to be a self-contained community where residents for the most part would live, work and spend their leisure. Key features of the town cited by the jury are:

1. Complete separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic in a system of walkways and roads. The road system serves all needs, yet no vehicle penetrates housing areas unless it has an origin or destination there. “ Automobile accidents have been reduced by 50 per cent” the jury noted. All resident areas are linked on one side by a main road, and on the other by a pedestrian walkway. Any point in the community can be reached easily and quickly by the walkway. Along these pedestrian ways are located all schools, churches, shopping facilities and public buildings.

2. A unique, multi-level town centre to extend a half-mile in length when completed. This facility is the centre of the roadway and walkway system, with each entering at a different level. The centre will house the town’s main stores, offices, hotels, recreation centres and other public buildings, with dwellings above. Covered parking will be provided for 5,000 cars on the lower level. In concept the town centre is like a vast department store, providing facilities for residents and visitors. “The jury believes the Cumbernauld town centre is the prototype of form that must evolve, sooner or later, for the central business districts in our cities in the United States” the official report noted.

3. Cumbernauld was designed as a single community, without subdivision into neighbourhoods. An urban density – an average of about 85 persons per acre in the housing areas – helps make all parts of the town with easy access to each other. The site comprises 4,150 acres. Of this, 2,783 acres are allotted to the town proper, with 820 for housing. The remainder of the town acreage is for the town centre, public facilities, open spaces and two industrial sections. The plan allocates 1,367 acres along the fringes to a golf course, sports field, wooded areas and camping site.

4. Architectural Design and land planning provide a high level of amenities for daily living. Scottish traditions of architecture have been carefully preserved in the thoroughly modern houses. Some have the traditional “close (courtyard and alleyway) and at least 50 per cent will have small private gardens. Architecturally the houses are consistent in expression. Stucco walls with slate or built-up roofs are the predominant exterior materials. Monotony is avoided by fundamental variety in building type, careful siting and well-articulated streetscape and landscaping. Site selection and interior design combine to provide both privacy and pleasant vistas in each house. Off-street parking is provided adjacent to each house, with garages in most cases. The closely planned public spaces offer scenic attractiveness and recreational opportunities. In designing the pedestrian systems planners “developed an idiom that makes every play area, road underpass and courtyard a real delight”, the jury observed.

5. The Exceptional economy was attained in development, a necessity because of the strong Scottish tradition of low rents, most units rent from $20 to $27 per month, not including utilities. The economy was achieved with total building material and technique, with little use of prefabricated building systems, although more and more construction now utilizes system building. “Cumbernauld has clearly exploited to the maximum its potential as a work of community architecture without sacrificing human values,” the jury reported. “in fact, it has recognized and enhanced these values as an integral part of its design objectives.” “As a work of urban design, Cumbernauld holds great significance for the architectural profession and for the future development of community architecture in the Western World.”

The Jury members were chairman Morris Ketchum, Jr EAIA, New York, immediate past president of The American Institute of Architects; Archibald C. Rogers, AIA of Baltimore; and John Fisher-Smith, AIA, of San Francisco. The Jury visited Cumbernauld and other communities before making its decision.

Plans for Cumbernauld were started in 1956 by the Cumbernauld Development Corporation. More than 5,500 homes have been built, and the population has climbed to 23,000. Some 50 industrial firms and 31 shops already have located in the town, with employment in excess of 4,800.

The Community Architecture Award is a companion program to the international R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award for Architecture Using Aluminium, established in 1957. The new award will be conferred in alternate years. The sculpture symbolizing both 1967 awards was created by Roy Gussow of New York and is entitled “Three Columns”.