Irvine New Town: Scotland's Lost Utopia
A walking tour through the central area of Scotland's fifth New Town
Joss Alexander Durnan
Walk / Tour
SAT 15 June 2019 / 11am – 12.30pm
FREE
The Townhouse
66 High Street
Irvine KA12 0AZ
Fully accessible / Children welcome
Irvine was Scotland's last New Town, and is the UK's only New Town by the seaside. As a New Town, Irvine pioneered a number of visionary ideas and built on the innovations of its predecessors. And yet, largely forgotten by architects, planners, and historians, its significance is taken for granted today. In the town itself, uttering the letters IDC is often met with revulsion. What happened to the bold vision of the future that Irvine Development Corporation sought to create for Irvine, and how do the fragments of their dream hold up to scrutiny 50 years on, in real life?
Join archaeologist Joss Durnan for a walking tour through his hometown, starting in the royal Burgh and ending on the seaside, taking in the New Town's most massive and maligned developments built, adapted, or unrealised.
#IrvineNewTown
