Tuesday, 13 August 2024

Skulferatu #125 - The Banana Flats (Cables Wynd House), Cables Wynd, Leith, Edinburgh


Ah, I do love a bit of Brutalism, that is as in the architectural movement rather than some sort of savage violence.  I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me I find there is a sort of Sci-Fi utopian appeal to it.  Even now, some of the buildings in that style look like something from the future.  So, being in the mood for a look at some heavy concrete, I took a walk through Leith to probably the most famous Brutalist building in Scotland, Cables Wynd House, locally known as the Banana Flats. 

 

A view down a street of 19th Century houses to a long grey and concrete block of flats with lines of windows running along it.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
View down to Cables Wynd House

 

A photo of a tall concrete tower block on pillars with the building stretching round in a curve to the left. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Concrete and cloudy skies

 

View along a road on which runs the grey walls of a tower block.  A red, low walled building stands on the right of the block. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
View along Cables Wynd House

 

A view up a pole on which hang large lights and a CCTV camera.  The grey walls and strips of windows of the block of flats sits behind.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Big Brother is watching you

 

The Banana Flats is one of those buildings that I remember having a certain mythology around it in the 1980s.  It was a place where some of my teenage acquaintances ended up being housed after being made homeless, having escaped violent and/or dysfunctional families.  Bumping into them in the pub on a Friday or Saturday night, they would regale me with tales of drug dealing, suicide, prostitution, and strange and bizarre happenings around the building.  And though I listened with fascination to their tales, I grew to be terrified of the place, thinking of it as some Sodom and Gomorrah, and hurrying past it if I was out in that area.   Then one drunken night I ended up at a party there, and it wasn’t that bad.  Fair enough, some kid did try to threaten me into giving him money as I was leaving, but he was about twelve and gave up when I just ignored him.

 

A view of a curving tower block with a central tower in the middle. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Cables Wynd House

 

A view looking up the concrete tower of the flats with the regimented windows of the tower block on the right-hand side.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Concrete in blue

 

A picture of a red brick wall on which there is a sign stating BEWAR anti climb paint on roof.  Behind the wall there are the grey walls and windows of a block of flats. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
BEWAR

 

Though the building has had, and still has, a bit of a reputation, it was built with the ideal of improving the quality of life for many of those living in substandard housing around Leith.  Between the 1950s and 1970s, there was a huge slum clearance project in Leith that resulted in the construction of several large public housing schemes. Cables Wynd House was part of this project and was completed in 1965.  The building is of a Brutalist design and was designed by Alison & Hutchison & Partners.  The design was influenced by the ideas of the architect, Le Corbusier and his utopian concept of the ‘Ville Radieuse’ or the Vertical City.  This being a city of high density housing in skyscrapers, located in a parkland area with shops, leisure, and cultural amenities as part of the development.

 

A view of a concrete tower.  In front of it stand some bare branched trees by a road on which several cars are parked. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
South tower of Cables Wynd House

 

A view of a wall on a block of flats with the sign Cables Wynd House on it.  The flats can be seen stretching away to the right.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Cables Wynd House

 

A view of a grey concrete tower stretching up to a blue sky. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Concrete tower

 

A photo showing a grey and concrete block of flats that curves away to the right.  To the right of it stands an old style tenement block of flats from the 1890s/1900s. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Banana Flats curve

 

A photo showing a grey and concrete block of flats that curves away to the right.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Banana Flats curve

 

A photo showing a grey and concrete block of flats that curves away to the left.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Banana Flats curve

 

A view from a cobbled street of a long, grey block of concrete flats stretching off into the distance. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Banana Flats from Henderson Street

 

Constructed of concrete, Cables Wynd House has a distinctive curve, that has resulted in its nickname of the ‘Banana Flats’.  At the time of its construction, it was the largest block of flats in Edinburgh being ten storeys high with 212 flats, the majority of these having two bedrooms. Cables Wynd House was regarded as being innovative in its design with features such as heated floors, lifts, refuse chutes, and a concierge.  It was also built with external access decks to recreate the sense of community that had existed in the neighbourhood it replaced, and has a North-South orientation to give as much natural light into the flats as possible.

 

Originally seen as a desirable place to live, things changed in the 1980s when the building, and surrounding area, gained a reputation for drugs and violence.  Things have improved, but Cables Wynd House, though seen as iconic by many, is still plagued by problems, and is regarded as the most deprived part of Edinburgh.   

 

The building gained fame as being the home of the character Simon ‘Sick Boy’ Williamson in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, and was featured in the film. It has also been used in the BBC television dramas Wedding Belles and Guilt.  

 

An old style photo showing a block of 1960s concrete flats with some trees in front of them.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
The Banana Flats

 

A black and white photo split into three parts showing different views of a banana shaped block of flats. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Model of Cables Wynd House showing the curve

 

In 2017 Cables Wynd House became a Category A Listed Building, for demonstrating ‘a culmination of contemporary architectural theories, bearing a close resemblance to Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation model housing and other notable near-contemporary English schemes’, as well as being ‘both a positive and negative architectural icon, representing a period of great social reconstruction in Scotland’s cities.’

 

After taking a walk around Cables Wynd House, on a typical Scottish day of rain, sunshine and then rain again, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on a cobwebby ledge by the Dry Mains Riser.

 

A photo showing a hand holding up a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 125) with a concrete building in the background.  A sign on the building states Cables Wynd House. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #125

 

A photo of a red metal door in a concrete wall of varying greys in a pattern of a line and an oblong. There is a sign stating Dry Riser Inlet on the red door. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Dry Riser Inlet

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 125) sitting on a cobwebby concrete ledge by a window enclosed with a wire guard in a square shaped pattern.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #125 on a cobwebby ledge

 

A photo of a small ceramic skull (Skulferatu 125) sitting on a cobwebby concrete ledge by a window enclosed with a wire guard in a square shaped pattern. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for the Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #125 on a cobwebby ledge

 

TomTom Map showing the location of Skulferatu #12
Map showing the location of Skulferatu #125

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.973143
Longitude -3.17431
 

what3words: wells.reap.over

 

I used the following sources for information on the Banana Flats –

 
Brutalist Britain (Second Edition)
By David Navarro & Martyna Sobecka
2022
 
 
 

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