Everyone hates it .. but should we really care?

IT has repeatedly been highlighted as the ugliest sight in the Capital - a "monstrosity" which clearly illustrates the absolute worst of 1960s architecture.

So it was no shock when the St James Centre was last year voted as one of the ten worst architectural eyesores in Britain by readers of Country Life magazine.

However, its ugly image hasn’t stopped more than 13 million people from flocking to the shopping complex annually.

But now the much-maligned mall - which ironically was built after winning a local authority-backed design competition - has been earmarked by two leading architects as one of the buildings they would most like to see erased from Scotland’s skyline.

George Ferguson, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, wants to see the centre, along with nine other eyesores, slapped with a new "X-list" status.

The opposite to Historic Scotland’s protective A and B-listing system afforded to architecturally important buildings, the radical proposal also includes tax incentives to encourage demolition and replacement of the ugly buildings.

The scheme has already been backed by Royal Institute of Architecture in Scotland president Gordon Murray. We asked our own panel of city architects and other high-profile Edinburgh figures which eyesore on the Capital’s streets they would most like to nominate for a new Channel 4 series called Demolition - effectively a reverse of the hit BBC show Restoration - which is aiming to find Britain’s worst building, reduce it to rubble and replace it with something better.

And although Edinburgh Airport and Argyle House were among the other buildings mooted, the resounding majority highlighted the St James Centre as the prime candidate for urgent redevelopment.

Award-winning city architects Richard Murphy and Malcolm Fraser agree that the centre is "the most obvious" example of a hideous building in Edinburgh. "The reasons why I dislike it are partly because it’s big, bulky and is sitting on the skyline," says Fraser, whose firm has designed buildings such as the Grassmarket’s Dance Base.

"It’s quite strange - people hate it but they still go and shop there."

Veteran city councillor Tom Ponton, who is a member of the Capital’s planning committee, also highlighted the centre as "one of the worst developments in the city".

"It’s a disaster," he says. "Planning officials and elected members of the day have to take a lot of blame for it. It’s criminal that they were allowed to build it."

David McDonald, director of the Cockburn Association civic trust, believes razing the building to the ground is the only positive way forward.

He says: "I definitely think it should be knocked down and replaced.

"It’s an intrusion on the city skyline from so many angles and is probably the worst building in Edinburgh in terms of its setting.

"Considering its location in the historic setting of the New Town, it really is a poisoned area that needs to be surgically removed from the city."

Designed in 1964 by architecture firm Ian Burke & Martin, the centre has been attacked by critics for decades.

The building itself is split into three separate parts - comprising the actual St James shopping complex on the ground floor, the adjoining Thistle Hotel, and office blocks above the centre which are leased to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2002, the centre’s owners announced that it would receive a multi-million-pound makeover in a bid to attract better retailers and improve the look of the area.

But although it now features a new upstairs eating area and a futuristic bridge linking the St James Centre to a neighbouring car park, with a further £1 million makeover planned within months, it remains one of the most vilified buildings in the Capital.

EVEN visitors to the centre say that although they regularly do their shopping there, the building is currently in serious need of a facelift - or more.

"Maybe demolishing it is a little harsh," says Simon Moriarty, a 31-year-old barman from Tollcross. "But it does need something done to make it look better.

"At the moment it’s a complete eyesore, and it isn’t exactly the sort of place that attracts you as a shopper.

"There’s some great stores inside, and the interior can look quite plush, but on the outside it’s a nightmare.

"For something that’s just off Princes Street and is surrounded by stunning buildings such as the Balmoral Hotel, it looks pretty disgusting and doesn’t fit in with its surroundings at all.

"It’s an absolute monstrosity," agrees 23-year-old events manager Gail Schyma. "The inside is slightly better, but it’s still a drab, stereotypical shopping centre that doesn’t exactly look aesthetically pleasing."

But do the people that manage and work in the centre feel the same way?

"I’ve never really given it much thought, to be honest, but I certainly don’t think it should be knocked down," says Dana Anderson, who is assistant manager at the centre’s Thorntons outlet. Admittedly the interior is much nicer than the outside of the building, but there’s been lots of investment recently which has made it look better."

However, other store managers at the centre are less sympathetic, arguing that if they didn’t work there, they wouldn’t even think about venturing inside at all.

"The outside just doesn’t grab you," says one store manager, who asked to remain anonymous. "And although the inside has got better recently, it still doesn’t look like the sort of place you’d like to come to as a shopper.

"Bulldozing it might be a bit harsh, but something does have to be done to make the outside look more pleasing to the eye."

And what about the managers and owners of the St James Centre itself? Do they agree that it is a blot on the landscape that needs to be redesigned?

"All of the 13 million shoppers that pass through our doors every year would possibly be put out if the place was knocked down," says centre manager Derek Miller.

"And the exterior of the building is not affecting their will to shop in the St James."

Steve Spray, of LaSalle Investment Management, who represent the centre’s owners Coal Pension Properties, adds: "About 300,000 people a week are voting with their feet, and they can’t all be wrong.

"It has been, and continues to be, an extremely good investment."

Sixties vision feted in its day

DESPITE the stigma that inevitably comes with designing a building as universally hated as the St James Centre, Ian Burke has been described as one of Scotland’s "most prolific and influential" commercial property architects of the past half-century.

In a career stretching five decades, Mr Burke was also the man behind Leith’s Newkirkgate Shopping Centre and the Overgate in Dundee - Scotland’s first major city centre redevelopment.

Born in Manchester, he managed the Dundee naval building programme during the Second World War before becoming a lecturer at Dundee University.

In the early 1950s he formed a partnership with fellow lecturer Hugh Martin, which eventually became Ian Burke & Martin Architects.

The firm dominated Scottish property development for a decade and designed the St James Centre in 1964.

At the time, the project was hailed as the most important development in Scotland for half a century.

The partnership split in 1969, but Burke continued to work as an architect in the Capital. He died on January 8, 1999, in Blairgowrie, aged 83.

The firm he founded, Ian Burke Associates, still operates in Edinburgh.