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# Three reasons not to demolish Edinburgh’s Argyle House - by architect Malcolm Fraser
- URL: https://www.edinburghminute.com/three-reasons-not-to-demolish-edinburghs-argyle-house-by-architect-malcolm-fraser/
- Published: 2025-11-14T11:08:23.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-16T21:34:37.000Z
- Description: 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
- Author: Michael MacLeod

### 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](https://citydev-portal.edinburgh.gov.uk/idoxpa-web/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=T5I62UEW0XE00&ref=edinburghminute.com), 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](https://fraserlivingstone.com/news/preserving-edinburghs-argyle-house?ref=edinburghminute.com), November 2025\. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/92/5b/925b4169-eb49-48f3-a960-edcd9282acd9/content/images/2025/11/CodeBase-Argyle-House-exterior-from-Castle-Terrace.png)

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