Bernat Klein Studio

– Neil Gillespie

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Travelling north through the Borders over the years, regardless of route, a diversion along a twisting country road north of Selkirk was always on the cards. Navigating a dangerous bend in the road, no time to stop, was rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of an enigmatic presence amongst the trees.

Over the years, the Bernat Klein Studio, gradually through time and neglect, was being absorbed into the land. A glorious footnote in Scottish architectural history seemed inevitable. In the last few weeks, however, a coalition of Heritage bodies has bought the studio with the promise of it once more being a place of creative practice and debate, the colour of Klein returning to Womersley’s concrete bones.

I have long speculated on its design. I have tended a flickering thought that centres on my own reading of the studio’s form. I saw no Frank Lloyd Wright, I saw something totemic, something more foreign.

A great friend, Brian Robertson, a former neuroscientist who, after a long and successful career, gave up his professorship to study for a degree in fine art at Edinburgh College of Art. Now an enlightened patron and promoter of the arts in Scotland, Brian, with his wife Lesley, curates an occasional contemporary gallery in Hawick called Zembla, from the land of Nabakov’s hyperborean imagination. In 2021, I was invited by Zembla Gallery to contribute to an exhibition that revolved around the work of Peter Womersley. This opportunity enabled me to give shape to my daydream in words and paint.

Read A Dream of Kagawa, a speculation and reflection on the work of Peter Womersley.

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Neil Gillespie is a Director of Reiach and Hall Architects. Neil has been a design critic at many architecture schools across the UK and lectures extensively, both on architectural theory and practice in the UK and internationally.