16 January 2012
We have occasionally been critical of Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire development. But Sustainable Scotland tries to be fair, and not let any dislike of the person prejudice reporting and comment on the development. We may have commented unfavourably on the design of the golf clubhouse that is to be built to complement what Mr Trump claims will be the finest golf course in the world. However this planned building has already won an award from Urban Realm magazine.
Urban Realm magazine was the PPA (Professional Publishers Association) Scottish Magazine of the Year in 2010. It is a quarterly architecture and planning magazine with a focus on Scottish issues, established as Prospect in 1922 by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, making it the UK’s oldest architectural magazine. We may not agree with what it says about the Trump clubhouse but this is certainly an important and serious award.
The award in question is the Zit award. You may be thinking of a zit as a pimple, a pustule, a papule, a small inflamed pus-filled elevation of the skin, and that is indeed the derivation of the award. It is for Scotland’s worst building and the Trumpton clubhouse has been awarded it despite the fact that it hasn’t even been built yet. A notable achievement indeed. Congratulations and celebrations and jubilations!
And what did Urban Realm say about the building-to-be? According to Michael Rasmussen, a fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects, “What we have here is an American’s perception of what a Scottish historical buildings looks like – and it is basically a glorified Disneyland. If one is designing a pastiche of a historic building, then, at the very least, it needs to be true to the scale, style and proportion of the period. This building is none of these.” Others have been less kind in their assessment, suggesting it looks more like an abattoir or a Victorian-style replacement for Peterhead prison. And indeed it does look in the official computer-generated picture – to my unarchitecturally-trained sight – less Disney and more slaughterhouse. You can make up your own mind.
Since 2000, Urban Realm has promoted the Carbuncle Awards, aimed at highlighting poor design and planning in Scotland. The awards comprise the Plook on the Plinth award for most dismal town, the Pock Mark award for the worst planning decision, and the Zit Building award for Scotland's most disappointing new building. The winners of the awards are disfiguring Scotland like the suppurating sores of a poxy rash on the face of a beautiful woman (using the last term in a strictly non-gender-specific sense).
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