Affectionately known as the ‘Conshy’ due to its location on one of Dundee’s steepest streets – Constitution Road – the derelict former campus of Dundee College is one of the city’s most prominent landmarks, and one of its biggest eyesores.
When it opened in 1970, the towering concrete and glass monolith was a modern, well-equipped centre of learning, a place of high hopes for the future and the prospect of endless opportunities, its Brutalist architecture very much in vogue. Now, over half a century later, with all hopes dashed, it is a sad, derelict shell, home to flocks of pigeons and a magnet for vandals.
Despite high perimeter fences topped with barbed wire, notices warning of asbestos and regular security patrols, most of the windows have been smashed and just about every wall has been daubed with graffiti. Plans to inject new life into the buildings, converting them into luxury apartments or student accommodation, have come and gone over the last decade and the site remains a very visible blot on the cityscape.
Opened on May 29, 1970, by Princess Alexandra, the £1 million Dundee College of Commerce, which took four years to build, proved popular from the outset, offering teenagers who had left school without qualifications the opportunity to study for Highers or gain practical skills. It also hosted night classes and recruitment events and enrolled over 20,000 new students each year.
In the mid-1980s, the College of Commerce merged with Kingsway Technical College to form Dundee College which, by now, had various campus buildings dotted across the city. Despite its flagship status, by 2000 the Constitution Road site was suffering from problems common to 1970s concrete architecture – the flat roofs were leaking badly and the buildings were becoming increasingly damp and difficult to maintain. Rather than refurbish the main nine-storey block and its neighbouring five-storey block, the college opted to cut its losses and relocate east to its recently acquired Gardyne campus.
Leaving the Conshy in 2011, the college (now Dundee & Angus College) made efforts to sell the site for redevelopment but a downturn in the economy scuppered plans and the buildings were left empty. The site quickly deteriorated, attracting vandals, drug users, graffiti artists and local kids. It was later auctioned off, sold to a property developer with plans for luxury apartments.
These, like other proposals drawn up over subsequent years for flats and student accommodation, failed to materialise and the site remains derelict, warning notices pinned to the perimeter fence failing to deter those determined to enter the grounds, among them urban explorers.
Secret Scotland 