Three reasons not to demolish Edinburgh’s Argyle House - by architect Malcolm Fraser
Although it's described as 'Edinburgh's ugliest building' by some, a new plan to replace Argyle House with a hotel and flats is 'madness, given the Climate Emergency' according to one of the city's most influential architects
In an open letter shared with the Minute, architect Malcolm Fraser - known for his work on the Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, DanceBase and Dovecot Studios - argues against plans to demolish Argyle House, home to CodeBase and dozens of other local firms. Although it's described as 'Edinburgh's ugliest building' by some, the proposal to replace it with a hotel and flats is 'madness' according to Fraser, one of the city's most influential and experienced architecture professionals:
1. Economic: 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?
2. Heritage and Placemaking: Argyle House is a distinguished modernist building, in a city that continues to erase its recent heritage. 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”. Plus I recall a Hibernian Football Supporters Forum where Edinburgh taxi drivers praised it to the skies - local folk with good taste.
3. Carbon, Waste and Climate Doublespeak: 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. As an architect I find it particularly distressing to see the plans being advanced by a former President of my professional institute, who has proclaimed himself a “Climate Champion”.
- Malcolm Fraser, Fraser/Livingstone Architects, November 2025.
