Concrete Aesthetic is a magazine which discusses architecture, tackles questions, shares ideas and viewpoints, and offers interesting insights to the reader with the aim of sparking conversation and inspiring them to go out and explore the built environment.
Cumbernauld, the largest town between Glasgow and Edinburgh, was born from postwar optimism and modernist ambition. Designated a New Town in 1955 to relieve housing pressure in Glasgow, it became a vast experiment in urban planning, where architecture and social ideals came together in concrete form.
In New Utopia, photographer Nick Dawe explores this unique legacy, capturing the shapes, textures and atmosphere of a place built to represent progress. His black-and-white photographs trace the vision of Geoffrey Copcutt’s original megastructure, with its network of walkways and layered public spaces, as well as later landmarks such as Gillespie, Kidd and Coia's Cumbernauld Technical College.
Through Dawe’s lens, Cumbernauld emerges as both a symbol of ambition and a record of change. The images reveal a town that continues to evolve, where the remnants of modernist ideals persist amid shifting ideas of renewal and preservation.
Photographer: Nick Dawe
Publisher: Uhm! Publishing
Format: Paperback/Magazine
Publication Date: 2025