Landscape Design, Planning and Infrastructure: Scottish Landscape Architecture through the work of Mark Turnbull (1943-2016)

McLean, Charlotte Lucy (2024) Landscape Design, Planning and Infrastructure: Scottish Landscape Architecture through the work of Mark Turnbull (1943-2016). Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This thesis examines a so far under-researched period of landscape history in Britain, through analysis of the archive of Scottish landscape architect Mark Turnbull (1943 – 2016) and complicates our understanding of the design and delivery of largescale infrastructural projects he was involved in. By focusing on a ‘golden age’ of landscape architecture in Scotland, this thesis provides a major contribution to the landscape history of the recent past, and studies of rural modernism. During the 1970s and early 80s Scotland, with the creation of New Towns and deindustrialisation of degraded landscapes in the Central Belt, Scotland was a ‘mecca ‘for landscape architecture. The discovery of oil provided jobs and bolstered income, around which Nationalist sentiment rallied, giving Scotland a sense of greater autonomy and renewed optimism. It created a fertile environment within which innovation could thrive. Due to transatlantic academic ties, several architects and planners, who had embraced opportunities to acquire landscape architectural and regional planning skills in North American academic institutions, returned to Scotland, empowered and emboldened by their experience, bringing with them fresh ideas, design methods and tools. The methodologies were pioneered, creatively combined, and developed on a series of largescale infrastructure projects which needed to be sited within the rural Scottish landscape. This thesis will introduce their development and assess their approach and success. Unlike most academic research surrounding ‘rural modernism’ to date, this thesis recognises landscape as a critical agent of cultural change, and places it centre stage, whilst grounding the research within a distinctly Scottish context. Turnbull’s archive is ‘thickened’ using oral histories and site observations, and employed as a lens through which the origins and development of the design methods and tools are traced to tease out historical lessons relevant to the current climate emergency.