Miles Glendinning, the principal inspector of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, dismissed the structures as “attention-grabbing inflatable toys” which, he said, “belonged in a theme park”.
Glendinning also pours scorn on Frank Gehry’s Maggie’s Centre at Ninewells hospital in Dundee which he said had little architectural merit.
“We are lucky in Scotland that we do not have too many buildings that are considered iconic,” said Glendinning.
“It used to be thought of as negative — a demonstration that Scotland was behind but, thank goodness, we resisted the temptation for more.
“There are examples, such as the Armadillo building and others around the Science Centre, the Maggie’s Centre in Dundee and Dynamic Earth. They are empty, overtly gestural buildings, inflatable toys. That kind of attention-grabbing approach belongs in a theme park.
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“But it’s not just about the buildings or even about the architects. It is all about the rhetoric which has hijacked these buildings to further consumerist aims. I would argue that this crisis stems from the modern movement which produced it.”
The Armadillo, part of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, was designed by Lord Foster, and Edinburgh’s Dynamic Earth was designed by Sir Michael Hopkins.
Glendinning, who was speaking in a personal capacity, also singled out Foster’s Swiss Re headquarters in London — popularly known as the Gherkin — and the Selfridges building in Birmingham, built by Future Systems, for criticism.
In a book, the Last Icons, due to be published next month, Glendinning argues that the buildings are symptomatic of a crisis in architecture which, he claims, has been hijacked by consumerism. This market-driven approach and obsession with the “wow” factor has led to the creation of buildings of “monstrous vulgarity”, he argues.
“One now knows that any building described as an icon will almost by definition be at best empty of meaning, and more likely, something of monstrous vulgarity,” he writes.
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“And while the older establishment signature masters continue for the moment to maintain their ascendancy through branded image-making, they also have to look uneasily over their shoulders at the fresh phalanxes of ever more ruthlessly nihilistic younger architects, with names sounding like nightclubs or commercial websites, moving up behind them.”
“Architecture has ceased to be something concerned with tomorrow, with building a future for those yet to come,” he adds.
His comments come against the backdrop of a growing debate in the architectural world about the merit of “iconic” buildings, which supporters claim have the power to regenerate towns and cities.
The issue will be debated by Glendinning and Sir Charles Jencks — the designer of Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s award-winning sculpture Landform — at Glasgow’s Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in April, at an event organised by Prospect Magazine.
Gavin Stamp, the architectural historian, said he supported Glendinning’s criticism of iconic buildings and their “superstar” designers. “There are more and more of these bloody buildings all the time. They are all about having a fancy shape rather than being designed with functionality in mind,” he said.
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“I’m sick of the whole business and I think it’s a very worrying development for architecture. We now have a glut of overpromoted superstars who (vacuum) up all the work.
However, Sebastian Tombs, the chief executive of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, defended the buildings as landmarks.
“If you look at many buildings on the New York skyline the same charges could have been levelled at many of them, but today buildings like the Chrysler building are a very much loved part of the landscape. A lot of people in London seem to like the Gherkin — it is a landmark which has personality and humour.
“There is, however, a justifiable concern that currently some think every new building must be iconic. That is certainly a worry.”