A Son of the Rock

Surprisingly for a provincial town Kirkcaldy has at least two large Art Deco buildings – and publicly owned at that.

This is Kirkcaldy’s signature Art Deco building, built in 1938 to a design by local architects Williamson and Hubbard. The flagpole on the right is flying a saltire, the other the royal standard. Quite why this is I don’t know; the day I took the pictures wasn’t a high day nor a holiday. The roof has been renewed at some point in its history, relatively recently by the look of it. There is a hint here that the original roof may have been flat.

There is interplay between horizontals and verticals but it’s the detailing on the rounded entrance and the flagpoles that makes it more than a rectangular box.

The building seems to be safe for at least five years but suffered an internal fire 20 or so months ago which happily didn’t affect the facade.

The window glass above the entrance is still curved. Hurray!

I like the way the line of the flagpoles is continued down through the doorways. Pity about the (mobile phone?) aerials just on the edge of the roof here.

The blue makes a good contrast to the white but is possibly too harsh. I assume the colour scheme has been adopted to reflect the one that the Fife Flyers Ice Hockey team uses.

The tops of the driveway entrance pillars have eroded away a bit. They do seem to have been restored since this photo was taken, though.