John Goodall
Modernist architecture might be at its most noticeable in cities, in the blocks of flats and shopping centres, the libraries and factories, the health centres and offices. But it was just as much a thing of the countryside.
'Open and wild landscape often inspires Modernist country houses,' says John Goodall, Country Life's architectural editor. 'Their great delight is that they are so open to the world beyond.'
Scotland has a number of them, adds John: the 1930s Gribloch, in Stirlingshire; the recently-restored High Sunderland House of the 1950s; and the early 21st-century Corrour Lodge.
And then there is the example on this page, an iconic example of this stark, angular, pared-back design ethos amid a beautifully unspoilt woodland in the heart of the Scottish Borders: the Bernat Klein Studio. It's an award-winning design by a celebrated architect, in a magnificent setting, about an hour's drive from Edinburgh.
You might be shocked to hear that it's about to come up for auction with a guide price of just £18,000. That shock will have subsided by the time you reach the bottom of this page.
The Bernat Klein Studio was built in 1972 by the architect Peter Womersley, who was commissioned by Bernat Klein himself. Klein, a Serbian-born artist and textile designer, moved to Britain after the Second World War, and after a few years in various spots he settled in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels where he set up a weaving and textile business.
And that business was good. Klein was soon creating textiles for companies including Marks & Spencer, but by the early 1960s — after winning a commission from Coco Chanel — he moved in to the world of high fashion, with Dior, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent among his clients.
Throughout all this, he remained based in the Borders, which was also home to Womersley, a modernist architect with an international reputation. Womersley used Frank Lloyd Wright's house Fallingwater as his inspiration for the Bernat Klein Studio, creating what is described as a 'very fine sculptural late Modernist building' by the assessors of in Historic Environment Scotland, who awarded the building Category A status in July 2002, following an initial B-grade listing in 1994.
It's not hard to see why they poured praise on this RIBA-award-winning, two-storey concrete and brick structure, with its frameless glazing, horizontal cantilevers and central service core that frees the perimeter up for the creative work that once took place within these walls. The auctioneers, Savills, describe it rather beautifully as a 'masterpiece of structural elegance' that is 'at the intersection of industrial craftsmanship and artistic vision.'
The Bernat Klein Studio's Category A listing is both blessing and curse, since it demands that the building find someone willing to sink in the funds needed to repair and restore it to its 1970s heyday.
As the pictures from agents Savills show, this will be no small task; the 20th Century Society recently estimated that it would need £2.5-3 million to be spent. And that is noted as 'a minimum'.
The 20th Century Society are part of a coalition hoping to buy and restore what they describe as 'one of Scotland’s most important twentieth-century buildings', with the National Trust for Scotland and Scottish Historic Buildings Trust and the Bernat Klein Foundation also involved.
The coalition will certainly be one of the bidders, though it seems likely that there will be others, particularly given that permission was granted in 2006 to convert the studio to residential use. Not that that permission has been enough to save the building in the past two decades, during which time it has been for the most part left derelict and decaying — the result of successive efforts biting off more than they can chew, for concrete restoration is notoriously tricky.
The razor wire on the bridge, and the half-built kitchenette, tell that story more eloquently than any words can. And as John Goodall points out, seeing iconic Modernist architecture in such a state is sadly common: 'There are also Modernist ruins such as St Peter's Seminary at Cardross by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, which is an object lesson in the complexities of managing modern ruins.'
One thing is certain: whoever takes on the challenge must do so with their eyes open. 'This is definitely not a project to be undertaken lightly,' says the 20th Century Society's co-director Catherine Croft, ' or without a huge depth of specialist expertise and very considerable financial resources.'
The Bernat Klein Studio near Selkirk comes up for auction via Savills on July 30th, 2025. See more pictures and details.
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