Rank building opposite Marshall College getting knocked down

The hideously ugly St Nicholas House on Broad Street – you know, the building that looked like it had survived an apocalypse – has finally seen a bulldozer.

After over 40 years of concealing Aberdeen’s last example of burgh architecture in the form of Provost Skene House, the council finally got their heads out the clouds and realised they were a big mistake.

Provost what? Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it: unless you knew it was there you would easily miss it. The house can only really be seen from the tiny Flourmill Lane that people rarely walk down – Aberdeen Council wanting to hide its history? Baffling.

yeah, sweet.

Whatever numpty gave the OK to such a build in the first place, that hides and swarms like a disgusting disease the most beautiful building in Aberdeen ought to feel very, very ashamed.

I don’t understand why a city’s council would ever want to do such a thing? ‘Work what your mother gave you’ or something? Well Aberdeen, you got some pretty ace buildings so stop hiding them and diverting our eyes to the likes of Union Square! I only hope the council members that were involved in the building’s inception in 1968 were merely slipping into the drug culture of the time. For that, I might forgive.

The Future.
Sponsored by ACC.

Regardless, they’ve clearly come to their senses and decided to knock the offenders down. And in its place? Plans for a mixed-use development was proposed by Muse Developments earlier in the year.

They’re telling us to expect heaps of glass, cafés, office spaces, retail, boutique hotels and a pedestrianised Broad Street, renaming the area Marischal Square.

A promise to expand Provost Skene House’s original gardens has also been made, although I can’t shake the feeling that the poor little house is still being shunned. The artwork that has been released by Muse shows the house as remaining still rather concealed, only in a slightly different way; with shiny glass and commercial logos no doubt, towering over and doing a great impression of a giant reflective fence.

Hmm, a ‘historical decision’? I am dubious. They just better not have a brain lapse and decide they want to flatten the house altogether in favour of yet even more fancy-pants offices and god forbid, apartment blocks.