Knowledge Awaits

Knowledge Awaits at the library.

I said that I’d visit the library to find out more about the odd projecting building in Cumbernauld blipped last week. The library is in the same massive, 60s, above-ground bunker of a building called The Centre Cumbernauld. It’s reached via a number of ramps, almost deserted, scary.

A librarian told me that the blipped part of the building was originally used as penthouses. I can’t imagine their interiors but they didn’t work, and proposals for use as office space or social housing came to nothing. The ramp to them from the library’s level has been blocked off half-way up by a not very professional wooden door padlocked.

The library itself is well-lit and attractive but very quiet, and the librarian said the staff were looking forward to the Centre’s promised demolition and the library’s relocation at some unspecified date.

A new shopping centre has been built and The Centre is largely empty apparently. Concrete has cracked. The roof leaks. Security randomly close off corridors. Pigeons find their way in though and die.

“Sorry if I’ve depressed you,” said the librarian.