Mark Chalmers

A blustery autumn day in 2035 – two figures walk along the sea wall at Marine Parade.  Dead leaves whirl around their feet, and a sere wind whips the dark Tay.  The giant blocks of stone are encrusted with barnacles and reid tangles.  In the distance, the old Victoria & Albert museum stands derelict, jutting into the river like something from Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

As they approach a rusting barrier in front of the building, the pair stop and both look up at the building, which is shaped like an old-fashioned spaceship, something from 50 years ago.  The man is in his fifties, wearing a thick black overcoat; a few steps away is a young woman, less than half his age, with a parka pulled up tightly around her chin.  They carry on walking across a pontoon, into the shadow of the building, and up to a boarded-up set of doors which are covered in graffiti.  A demolition company’s signboard is nailed across their stiles.

The windswept space on the landward side of the building is empty, and a chip wrapper scoots along the ground, then suddenly rears into the air driven by a gust of wind.
–Bit of a waste, this place?
It’s jist a white elephant, no wonder they’re pullin it down.
–But it must have been futuristic at the time it was built?
“From what I mind, they were jist lookin for something that looked flash”
–That’s pretty superficial.
“Why else would ye build it like this, pokin out into the river?  Plenty solid ground out Riverside Drive.”
–Mmm.
“They had a carry on about which design to choose.  Didnae matter in the end.  They all end up the same.  Rubble.”

The long white tiles which clad the hull of the spaceship stream with dirt, and seagull crap is piled up on the building’s many ledges.  Hundreds of birds roost on its seaward face, which to them must seem like a sea cliff.

“I mind when it was announced.  The news was full o it at the time.  Aa very positive.  But you have to mind that in those days, there was still work in Dundee.  DC Thomson was still in business.  Well I think they’d shut down their West Ward Works, but they were still printin papers and magazines on the Kingsway.  An ye ken what eventually happened to them – went the same way as NCR and ABB afore them.  Mibbe thae names won’t mean much now.”

“The politicians seemed to think aa the factories could be shut doon, and museums and galleries or whitever would tak their place.  I mean, when I wis your age, there were still industries here – they just let them go.  There wis a high tech firm aff the Perth Road makin transformers, they shut doon the same month the V&A was announced.  Nae support, nae offer o assistance.  Things were bad, that was the year aa the computer games companies shut doon, Aberdeen Cooncil wis declared bankrupt, an even Dundee Fitba Club went bust.  Scotland took a hammerin.  Funny thing though, the politicos jumped at the chance tae build this.”

As they walked further around the spaceship’s hull, the walkways were littered with broken white tiles.  They walked around the hull, its strips of glazing caked with salt spray and the metalwork below rusting.

“Well ye see what the Victoria and Albert in London didna let on was that they’d only gie it money for ten years.  After that, cheerio lads, see tae yersels.”
–They must’ve said something?
He gave a dry laugh, “Aye maybe someplace in the sma print, Kay.”
–Come on Dad, you’re an old cynic.
“I mind when it was first in the papers, a photo wi the committee folk lookin well pleased wi themselves, pleased tae see the city gettin gentrified.”
–At the time they probably thought they were doing the right thing
“Mibbe, but you’ll mind hearing about Martin Pawley or Reyner Banham from your theory lectures?
She shook her head. –I don’t remember the names?
“Hmmh, the architecture course at Dundee isna what it was, when I was there.”  He laughed, “Well I did tell ye no to repeat my mistake and study architecture.  But ye would have yr own way…”
–What did Pawley and Banham say?
“Different things most o the time, but they both reckoned events would overtake these buildings.  Icons, so-called.  There wouldna be a need for them.  Right enough, now we’ve got hologram projectors, ye can see any artwork in yer ain house, walk right around it, rather than stuck ahind a sheet o glass in a museum.  They kennt things would change, it’s just that the change took a while longer than they imagined.
–Hmmm.
“When I wis a teenager, they said printed books were on their way oot, but it’s only a few years ago that really happened, eh?”
–I’ve still got books, Dad.
“Aye but ye don’t read them, though.  Ye just use the net.”

Kay poked her finger at the white tile, cracked and crazed and crumbling away.  They walked on.

Whit about your history lectures – they’ll have told you what was here aforehand?
Kay pondered, –The Royal Arch?
“Lang ago, when I wis your age, afore this thing was here, they had a railway station, the cooncil offices, swimming baths, and a hotel here, aa linked together with walkways.”
–Why did they get rid of them?  Sounds like a good idea, putting all the civic buildings together.
“Dundee’s got a great record of knockin things doon.  This place is jist the latest.  Of course, there were also the Customs House and Mathers Hotel as well.”
–I’ve never heard of them?
“Aye, architecture lecturers, still useless… they dinna tell you anything about the city you’re living in.”
Kay grimaced.
“They took all the listed buildings and sold them.  Dismantled them, rebuilt elsewhere.  The city was broke and needed the cash.
–Shame.
“See – decades ago lads like James Caird and Ron Bonar, they gave millions to the city – but they’d *made* the money first, that’s the difference.  They were rich men, they could afford tae gie something back.  this idea that the Cooncil builds places like this - when there’s nae work in the city – there’s nae money in the city.  Ye see whit happened though when the city wasn’t makin money – the jute museum at Verdant Works, that wis made intae flats.  Barrack Street Museum wis made into a nightclub.  This thing here – V&A on Tay – is standin empty.

Kay peered through the narrow slot of glass at waist height – it was filthy, and inside was too dark to make out anything worthwhile.

–Anyway I suppose the Telford Society folk will be pleased
“Aye well, I guess they will.  It’s sic a shame that Dundee jist relies on tourists an heritage these days.
“For instance…”
Kay looked at her father with a “oh here we go again Dad” expression.
“When I was young, India and China were poor countries.  Now they’re rich, an we canna afford to buy what they mak.  Of course, they pay themsels too much, they’re mair interested in long holidays and fancy cars than workin.  They spend billions o rupees on art collections and the museums tae house them – but the difference is they can afford them.
–A hundred years ago it was the other way round.
“Quite so, an why do ye think the fields in Strathmore are blue nowadays?”
–Huh?
“Flax plants – we used tae import man-made cloth fae Asia, but it costs too much to dae that the day.”
–Anyway there’s no oil to make plastics with, and I thought the flax plants were down to the environmentalists, organic farmers, that kind of thing?
“Nah, no really.  It’s need, we need cloth and that’s the cheapest way to get the fibres.  One day, some of thae flax firms will get big enough tae tak on the Indians.  I mean we buy their fancy Indian machinery, but we could probably mak it cheaper oursels.
–They have the technology though.
“Aye.  But the smart lads here should be lookin to see how it’s done, learn aa they can from the subcontinent, then undercut their prices.  I mean, imported cloth isnae cheap, no once ye pay a huge carbon tarriff to ship it halfway round the world.”

They walked on, across a footbridge spanning the trackbed of the old East Coast rail line – a few years ago, it was shut north of Edinburgh to save money.

–I can remember being in the V&A
“So can I.
–So what happens now?
“Mair work for the demolition firms – and ye ken, while they were building this place, they knocked down a dozen tower blocks in Dundee, that hadna even been paid for?  There’s a moral in there someplace, eh?
–No shit, Kay replied, rolling her eyes.