Tayside House was completed in May 1975 and stood as a hideous scar on Dundee’s skyline for almost four decades.
It was an image of modernisation when it was built but over time it was decried as a symbol of everything that was wrong with brutalist architecture.
Tayside House was known locally as Fawlty Towers.
The building split opinion in Dundee almost from the get-go.
Tayside House rose from the rubble in 1972
Work started following the wrecking spree that cut a swathe through the city’s architectural heritage.
The Royal Arch was knocked down in 1964 to make way for the Tay Road Bridge.
Also demolished in this area were the East Station and the Empress Ballroom.
A multi-storey office block was built after these treasures were knocked down.
Bett Brothers started work in 1972 on the office block for Ravenstone Securities, which was designed by Dundee architects James Parr and Partners.
It was 200 feet high with 18 storeys.
The building became the home of Tayside Regional Council.
The Wheatley Report, which was published in September 1969, proposed a two-tier structure with parallel but separate regional and district councils.
Village and city were being lumped together.
It was the biggest administrative change that Scotland has ever known.
Tayside Regional Council would now have on its payroll over 18,000 staff.
The multi-storey office block was available for rent.
It was a “no-brainer”.
The incoming council agreed to lease the building for 63 years.
It was positioned right in the eye line of the traffic coming across the road bridge.
Tayside Regional Council moved in 1976
The new system of regional and district councils was finally introduced in 1975.
Playing cards were used to decide the chairmanship of the new body.
Independent Duncan Millar, who was supported by Labour councillors, drew against Conservative William Fitzgerald who was an ex-Lord Provost of Dundee.
They both drew aces on the first cut and had to draw again.
Mr Millar drew another ace the second time while Mr Fitzgerald drew a nine.
The first meeting didn’t take place at Tayside House.
It did not have the rooms which were needed to hold council meetings .
The councillors had to meet in the corridors.
That would be solved by adding on the podium block at the bottom of Crichton Street.
It was carpeted and furnished after being completed.
The computer section started working in the lower floors from January 1976.
They were joined in May 1976 by the finance department and the public transport department, which took charge of 700 vehicles.
Council meetings took place from 1977
Public access was from the Castle Street end of Shore Terrace.
The podium block was ready for councillors in February 1977.
The “flitting” was complete.
Council staff enjoyed spectacular views over the city and the Tay estuary.
But the building was never popular with the citizens of Dundee.
Iain Flett from Friends of Dundee City Archives said Dundee would have been “financially and politically a poorer place” without Tayside House.
He described the building as a “lifesaver”.
“It was built with private investment at a time when the bizarre untried experiment of regionalisation in 1975 hit Scotland,” he said.
“While neighbouring Fife was left as a recognisable continuation of the old former county after a vigorous scrap to keep it whole as the Kingdom of Fife, the boundaries of Dundee, Perthshire and Kinross-shire and Angus were amalgamated into Tayside Regional Council with the two former counties and the city of Dundee relegated to district councils.
“When Tayside Regional Council was first elected, it had a political Conservative majority when Dundee District Council had a Labour majority.”
Council HQ might have stood in Perth
It was not a foregone conclusion that the regional HQ would be in Dundee.
“The geographical centre of 1975 Tayside was nearer to Perth,” he said.
“It was a distinct possibility that its HQ might have been placed nearer Perth.”
Mr Flett said: “Although a tired building by the time of its demolition, it was an image of modernisation when it was built.
“Its computer suite of IBM reel to reel computer cabinets with punched cards was industry standard at the time.
“In short, if Tayside House had not been built and Tayside Regional Council had gone elsewhere for its HQ, Dundee would have been financially a poorer place.”
Tayside House was knocked down in 2013
Tayside Regional Council eventually purchased the building from Ravenstone Securities and Guardian Royal Exchange for £8.6 million in 1984.
Scotland’s regions and districts were eventually replaced with 32 councils in 1996.
Dundee City Council bought out the other two councils’ interests in the building.
It remained hugely unpopular.
In 2000 it was voted the city’s most hated building.
City planners eventually agreed.
The region’s administrative hub was a pile of rubble by 2013, as the city brought forward its ambitious £1 billion re-imagining of the central waterfront.
Councillors approved a £1.2 million tender from Safedem for the demolition.
Its adjoining podium block, often regarded as the little brother of Tayside House, which latterly also housed a police station, was the first to go in summer 2012.
The erection of scaffolding to Tayside House was completed by September.
Muncher chewed down Tayside House
Tayside House was removed brick by brick because the close proximity of the east coast railway tunnel made a controlled explosion impossible.
The works started at roof level on a floor-by-floor basis using small robotic breakers.
The robot-controlled vehicles chewed Tayside House down to 10-storeys, which became a height now low enough to allow “accelerated demolition”.
A high-reach machine then took over.
Its demolition of the landmark in May 2013 captivated commuters.
It was given the nickname Muncher.
The concrete walkway which carried pedestrians over South Marketgait to the Olympia Centre, Hilton Hotel and Gala Casino was also pulled down.
A giant fan and hoses were set up to suppress clouds of dust from drifting on to South Marketgait and up towards the city centre.
Muncher left Tayside House in July 2013, leaving diggers and lorries to finish the job and move the 18,000-tonne pile of rubble it left.
The rubble was used for landfill in the waterfront redevelopment.
Its removal from the city’s skyline after 40 years was followed by the demolition of the Olympia Centre, the Hilton Hotel and the Gala Casino.
A £34 million replacement, Dundee House, in North Lindsay Street, opened in 2011.
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