Book reviews: Jute No More: Transforming Dundee | Undiscovered Dundee

Published on Tuesday 10 May 2011 13:00

The city of Dundee has never stood still - but are Dundonians reluctant to embrace change?

Jute No More: Transforming Dundee

Edited by Jim Tomlinson and Christopher A Whatley

Dundee University Press, 300pp, 20

Undiscovered Dundee

by Brian King

Black & White Publishing, 192pp, 9.99

WHICH is Scotland's least- understood city? According to Christopher Whatley, a strong case can be made for Dundee, which suffers from the curious failing of having a past that is much more widely known than its present.

Its changes in the last 30 years have been enormous. In 1982, as it rebranded itself "City of Discovery", it was also emerging as a major university town, with cutting-edge work in medical research and gaming. Yet tell Dundonians that they are living in a go-ahead, dynamic city, with a waterfront about to be transformed, Bilbao-like, by the 47 million new V&A museum, and they will look back at you with tender concern for your sanity.

But they shouldn't be surprised at the possibility of such a transformation. Historically, Dundee has been more open than most cities to globalisation, with a long, and largely successful drive towards international markets. Although the death of the jute industry is often shown as a shock, it was inevitable. In fact, the real surprise is that it lasted so long, especially when areas such as Calcutta had a better and cheaper base.

What Tomlinson and Whatley are attempting in their new book is to get Dundonians to look objectively at their past and see how the city has transformed itself to what it is today. The key is its civic architecture, which has always depended on a clear articulation of self-image.

And that's precisely what has always been lacking about Dundee. "If a flight of gigantic crows had dropt our houses from the air, they could not have arranged themselves with a more admired confusion." This was written in the Dundee Advertiser in the mid-19th century, when the city seemed to comprise little more than vast jute mills and narrow lanes and massive tenements. There was nothing spectacular about Dundee's city centre, no grand houses or civic buildings. If ever any city needed transformed, it was dank, dreary, dismal old Dundee.

This same architectural inferiority complex has plagued the city, from the Victorian era right up to the decision on the V&A. Charles McKean talks of walking along the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen and noticing the grandeur that surrounds them compared to the narrow, old tired buildings of Dundee. Even in modern times the city looks as confused as it has always been.

Modern buildings such as the Bank of Scotland in the Nethergate and the new Overgate shopping centre are placed next to and around buildings that have stood (and some in a state of decay) for hundreds of years: quite simply, they look out of place.

Rather surprisingly, McKean does not discuss the Tay Hotel and Dundee railway station. When you first arrive at the latter, the first building to catch your eye is the decaying, abandoned Tay Hotel. If two buildings can represent the failures of town planning and Dundee's self-esteem problems it is both of these. The Tay Hotel, built in 1889, at one time was a grand building. It was last used as a hotel quite a while ago and has become an eyesore in a very prominent part of the city. The station itself is another example of the town planners not embracing the city's past and instead picking a modern build that now looks out of place. There is talk of the railway station being rebuilt and the Tay Hotel being used, possibly for commercial ventures, but so far it's nothing more than talk.

The buzz that surrounds the new V&A building and the waterfront redevelopment have given Dundonians something to be excited about. The city finally has another chance to reinvent itself and hopefully learn from past mistakes. The book does touch upon the 45 million V&A project but only really in the introduction, there is nothing else about the new Olympia building and the redevelopment of the docks area as a whole. The book talks of past glories, but perhaps more of a look into future ones would have been a nice touch.

It does, however, succeed in showing Dundonians that there was and is more to the city than jam, jute and journalism. Although I would have liked more about the waterfront development, overall it is a welcome addition to the subject and - who knows? - might even spark a flowering of civic pride.

Whilst Jute No More is firmly academic, Brian King's Undiscovered Dundee is aimed at a wider readership. A Dundonian himself, he has an uncanny ability to make a fascinating tale from what might superficially appear to be rather plain ingredients.

His book opens with the story of the deaths of 20 ordinary working class Dundonians on 2 January 1865. This story has virtually passed out of common local knowledge; in King's vivid retelling, one wonders why on earth this ever happened.

Some of the stories seem to have a very thin connection to Dundee. An actor, William Duncan, who made the role of the cowboy popular in cinematic history, was born in Lochee, we discover. Christina Stevenson Thomson, said to be the richest woman alive in her day and wife to car businessman Horace Dodge, started her life in a tenement in Dundee. But they are connections none the less, and being interesting stories King can be forgiven for casting his net wider in looking for his undiscovered Dundonians.

King, at the start of the book, talks about how many of the grander, older buildings of Dundee, such as the town house, have been demolished to make way for new buildings. It's a metaphor for the stories he is about to tell. "A hidden history lies buried in the debris of the demolished city. And, perhaps, a hidden future too.