Argyle House | Edinburgh's Brutalist Giant in the Shadow of the Castle
Argyle House
Edinburgh's Brutalist Giant in the Shadow of the Castle
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Edinburgh is a city famous for its architecture. There are Georgian terraces, mediaeval closes, Victorian tenements and, of course, Edinburgh Castle sitting high above everything on Castle Rock.
Then there is Argyle House.
Standing between Lady Lawson Street, West Port and Castle Terrace, Argyle House could hardly be more different from the historic buildings surrounding it. It is big, uncompromising and unmistakably a product of the 1960s. For some people it is one of the ugliest buildings in Edinburgh. For others, myself included, it is a fascinating survivor from a period when architects were prepared to build on a completely different scale.
Whatever you think of it, Argyle House is difficult to ignore.
A Very Different Edinburgh
Argyle House was completed in 1968 and designed by Michael Laird & Partners, with architects Michael Laird and Ian Rogers associated with the project. It was constructed during a period when Edinburgh, like many British cities, was undergoing considerable change.
Post-war architecture was looking towards modernism. Concrete, prefabrication and large open-plan office buildings promised a new type of city, one that was supposed to be efficient and practical rather than decorative.
Argyle House certainly fitted that thinking.
The building was developed primarily as government office accommodation, and its sheer scale immediately made it stand out. Behind the lower section facing Castle Terrace rise two large office wings, connected around a central service core. At its deepest point the complex reaches eleven storeys.
There is nothing particularly delicate about it.
That is also part of what makes it interesting.
Concrete, Stone and Repetition
At first glance Argyle House can appear to be simply an enormous grey concrete block, but spend a little time looking at it and there is considerably more going on.
Its elevations have a strong repeating rhythm created by rows of windows, narrow vertical concrete elements and darker panels beneath them. The construction used the Bison prefabricated large-panel system, allowing huge sections of the exterior to be assembled in a repetitive pattern.
This repetition gives Argyle House its enormous visual presence.
The lower Castle Terrace section is different again. It was faced with Blaxter stone and incorporated enormous abstract concrete relief panels by artist George Garson above the public entrances. They are easily overlooked, particularly if you are simply walking past, but they are an important part of the original building.
These details are one of the reasons I find Brutalist architecture so interesting to photograph. Something that initially appears plain can become surprisingly complicated once you start studying the shapes, shadows, textures and repeating patterns.
Argyle House is particularly good for this.
A Controversial Neighbour to Edinburgh Castle
Location has probably always been Argyle House's biggest problem.
Put the same building on an industrial estate or university campus and it might attract considerably less attention. Instead, Argyle House sits immediately below one of the most historically sensitive and photographed parts of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Castle towers above it.
The Grassmarket and Old Town are nearby.
Across Castle Terrace is another major piece of Edinburgh's post-war architecture, Castle Terrace Car Park, completed during the 1960s and now itself a listed building.
The result is an extraordinary collision between different periods of Edinburgh.
You can stand in this part of the city and see centuries of architecture within a remarkably small area. Ancient stone, Georgian and Victorian buildings and enormous pieces of 1960s modernism all compete for attention.
Argyle House has never tried to disappear into that landscape.
It simply sits there.
Big, grey and unapologetic.
Even when it was relatively new, its scale was questioned. Architectural critic Colin McWilliam admired elements of its design but considered too much building to have been squeezed onto the site, describing it as potentially competing with Castle Rock itself.
That gives some idea of just how controversial the building was from the beginning.
Ugly or Important?
Calling Argyle House beautiful is probably going to start an argument.
It has regularly been described as one of Edinburgh's ugliest buildings, and I can understand why some people dislike it. It is enormous and repetitive, and there is very little about its exterior that could be described as traditionally welcoming.
But architecture doesn't always have to be pretty to be interesting.
Argyle House represents a particular moment in Edinburgh's history. The optimism surrounding modern construction, the desire for large, efficient office buildings and the confidence architects had in concrete and prefabrication are all visible in it.
More importantly, examples of this period are gradually disappearing.
That has changed the debate surrounding buildings such as Argyle House. Architect Malcolm Fraser has been among those arguing for its retention, pointing towards its solidity, adaptability and importance as one of Edinburgh's surviving examples of large-scale post-war architecture.
I think there is an important point there.
If we demolish every building from a period simply because it has fallen out of fashion, eventually there will be very little left to explain that part of our architectural history.
From Government Offices to Edinburgh's Technology Scene
Argyle House has also had a surprisingly varied life.
Originally associated with government offices, parts of the building were later occupied by organisations, including the University of Edinburgh and technology businesses. CodeBase established its headquarters there, and the building became associated with Edinburgh's growing technology and start-up community.
That is another interesting aspect of Brutalist and modernist buildings.
Their large floorplates and fairly straightforward construction can make them adaptable. A building created for government bureaucracy in the 1960s found another life decades later accommodating university departments, technology companies and start-ups.
Argyle House may look dated from the outside, but it has continued to work.
Argyle House on Screen
More recently the building has found another unexpected role.
Argyle House became instantly recognisable to a much wider audience after appearing as the police headquarters in the Netflix crime drama Dept. Q. Its severe concrete exterior was almost perfect for the programme. It has also appeared as a police headquarters in the television adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Crime.
It isn't difficult to understand why location scouts were attracted to it.
Argyle House already looks cinematic.
The long concrete elevations, deep shadows, repetitive windows and slightly intimidating scale give it an atmosphere that would be extremely difficult to recreate artificially.
An Uncertain Future
Today Argyle House faces perhaps the most important period in its history.
Proposals have been brought forward to demolish the existing complex and redevelop the site with a mixture of residential accommodation, hotels, offices and commercial space. The proposals have triggered considerable debate over whether Edinburgh should preserve one of its remaining large-scale examples of post-war modernism or allow the site to be completely redeveloped.
Historic Environment Scotland subsequently assessed Argyle House and recognised its significance as an example of Scottish Modernism, but in 2026 it did not proceed with listing while redevelopment proposals were already at an advanced stage.
That leaves the future of the building uncertain.
And perhaps that is why now is such an interesting time to photograph it.
My View
Argyle House will never be everybody's favourite Edinburgh building.
It probably wasn't supposed to be.
For me, that is part of its appeal.
I like architecture that tells you something about the period in which it was built, and Argyle House certainly does that. There is no attempt to pretend that it is Georgian, Victorian or mediaeval. It is completely and confidently 1960s.
Walking around it with a camera reveals details that are easily missed. The concrete changes depending on the light. The repeating windows create almost abstract patterns. Huge sections that can appear flat from a distance become much more three-dimensional when photographed closely.
And then there is that remarkable setting.
Few cities could produce a view where a massive 1960s office complex sits beneath a mediaeval castle built on an extinct volcano.
It shouldn't really work.
Perhaps it doesn't.
But that contrast is precisely what makes Argyle House such an interesting part of Edinburgh.
Love it or hate it, the building represents a chapter in the city's architectural history that cannot simply be recreated once it has disappeared.
For the moment, Argyle House remains where it has stood for more than half a century: an enormous, controversial and strangely fascinating Brutalist landmark sitting defiantly in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.
By Daren Frankish
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