Penicuik sits in a valley on the West Bank of the River Esk – a suburban “commuter” town occupying the A701, midway between Edinburgh and Peebles.
The landscape of the paper mill facilitates ideas of collective memory, pollution, and the decline of industry in Scotland: very little remains of the industrial centre, situated on the River Esk, which once received the raw material from the mill; Penicuik itself was built around the paper industry that no longer supports the town.
The built form is a response to the loss of the industry, where light comes through chimney-like light tunnels, the building fills up with space exactly at the time the last paper mill collapsed, 1st August 1975.
With thanks to Beate Hølmebakk.