Two more Art Deco buildings in Dundee’s Murraygate.

First is Marks And Spencer’s, right out of the Art Deco period.

The second is now under the Topshop/Topman umbrella but was formerly a Burton’s.

Compare the style with the Burton’s in Kirkcaldy. See another view of this Dundee building here.

Lots more Burton’s buildings are pictured in this collection.

As promised, more pictures of my stroll round Dundee.

The top floors of this building are now filled by a JJB Sports and the ground floor has a Tesco Metro.

From the styling it looks to me as if it originally was a Woolworths but I’ve not sufficient knowledge of Dundee to be sure of that. I couldn’t get far enough back across the street to frame the whole building.

There are some nice flourishes around the windows.

There are four identical embellishments on the roof edge. Some of them are sprouting plants.

The building next to this (housing an Evans) has a clocktower that is obviously Deco influenced but must be much more recent.

There is another Murraygate view here of this possible Dundee Woolworths.

The first one is of course of the most striking example of the form in the city. Even if it’s a travesty of its former glory you can’t miss the tower.

Green’s Playhouse was erected in the Nethergate in 1936 as a cinema but has now been converted (rather obviously) to a bingo Hall.

The following is from the Theatres Trust website.
“A large ‘super-cinema’ – second only in the UK in size to Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow (1927) – by John Fairweather. The lavish interior was by John Alexander, with Art Deco foyer and restaurant, and the auditorium, with Corinthian columns and piers marching down the side walls, was described as an ‘outstanding and enormous Classical/Art Deco theatre’. It was said to have set ‘standards of luxury unrivalled anywhere else in Scotland’. The exterior was dominated by a 25m lattice steel neon advertising tower, later clad with sheet metal. Bingo and other uses from 1967 until a devastating fire in 1995. The remains were deemed to be dangerous and demolition followed, although the tower survived and is listed (Category B).”

The Scottish cinemas website has some stonking old pictures of the Playhouse in its heyday, including a few of postcards that were made of the exterior, the foyer and Sunshine Café; not to mention of the management and staff! Those were the days. Some of the plans are shown there too.

The building was certainly much classier then than it is now.

Here are the external lighting cylinders in close up.

There’s a photo here of the cylinders with their tips lit up.