Argyle House: Edinburgh architect blasts 'distressing' plans to bulldoze 'eyesore' Netflix Dept Q building

A leading Edinburgh architect has described plans to demolish an 11-storey building described as Edinburgh’s “ugliest” as “distressing”.

Malcolm Fraser, a leading Edinburgh architect who founded his first practise Malcolm Fraser Architects in 1993, criticised the planned demolition after a proposal of application notice (PAN) was submitted to Edinburgh City Council for Argyle House.

The building, situated on Castle Terrace, would be redeveloped into a mixed-use complex featuring residential units, hotels, offices, commercial spaces, parking and landscaped areas under the plans.

Mr Fraser made his name as an architect developing bars, restaurants and nightclubs, many of which redefined the townscape and urban realm of Edinburgh’s Old Town. His portfolio includes the Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, DanceBase and Dovecot Studios.

Argyle House, built between 1966 and 1969, has regularly been named one of Edinburgh's least attractive pieces of architecture.

In an open letter, addressed to politicians, amenity groups and city stakeholders, Mr Fraser asked them to join him in “viewing this as a remarkably retrograde step”.

The building sits close to Edinburgh's famous castle.

He made three points, arguing Argyle House plays a vital role in Edinburgh’s economy, heritage and sustainability.

The building is home to CodeBase, one of the UK’s largest start-up incubators, and more than 80 small businesses employing around 900 people. CodeBase, which only recently renewed its lease for another year, said it had no prior warning of the demolition plans.

Mr Fraser wrote: “The strongest part, in many independent economists' views, of Edinburgh and Scotland’s economy is the unheralded and self-generated tech and crafts infrastructure - teccy start-ups, crafts daubers, fiddlers and dreamers - occupying cheap space and doing the real innovation, and generating the innovative jobs, that government aye begs for.

“Argyle House has nurtured two unicorn companies - ie now capitalised at over a billion dollars.

“Do we really think it's progress to put them out onto the street for more hotels and executive flats?”

Mr Fraser went on to call Argyle House a “distinguished” and “modernist” building in a city that “continues to erase its recent heritage”.

He said: “In its sturdy, grey monumentality, it is characteristically Edinburgh; and in placemaking it does a nice thing in stepping back from the tight junction at the head of West Port, a move that Patrick Geddes, doyen of town planning and Edinburgh hero, would have surely approved, given his adage of ‘letting some light in’.”

Mr Fraser recalled Edinburgh taxi drivers who “praised the building to the skies”.

‘Madness’ to knock down Argyle house and ‘condemn huge amounts’ of embodied carbon

He said of the planned demolition: “It is madness, given the seriousness of the climate emergency and the ocean of waste that we condemn to landfill, to knock down a sturdy, solid and useful building, condemning huge amounts of embodied carbon.”

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The block, which is often described as an “eyesore”, was sold to US firm PGIM Real Estate for about £38 million in 2023.

The building’s annexe at West Port appeared as a police station in Netflix’s Dept Q, starring Matthew Goode, and it featured in the TV adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s Crime.

Public consultation events on the proposals are scheduled at the Edinburgh Futures Institute on December 2 and January 28.