Scottish panorama Uni campus is one of the world’s most breath-taking modernist ensembles

IT WILL be 40 years this autumn since I first arrived at Stirling University. Four decades since I was a student on perhaps the most beautiful campus in the country. Much has changed in the interim. The halls of residence I stayed in were knocked down a few years ago, the Macrobert Arts Centre, which opened its doors in 1971, has recently undergone a swish new upgrade as part of the university’s multi-million-pound redevelopment plans. And let’s just say that the sports complex, which has its own Olympic-sized pool, has come on a bit since the 1980s.

None of which has changed the appeal of the place as a whole. Squeezed in between Dumyat and the Ochils and the Wallace Monument, the campus is a physical manifestation of 1960s optimism. Founded by Royal Charter in 1967, Stirling University was designed by the RMJM architectural practice. The result was low-rise modernism set in a bucolic landscape, complete with loch and its own castle (Airthrey Castle, which dates back to the 18th century).

RMJM’s merging of concrete and glass and greenery remains hugely attractive. In his recent book Modern Buildings in Britain (published by Particular Books), Owen Hatherley suggests that if you catch the university on a clear autumn day “with the concrete reflected in the lake and the sun catching the mountains,” then the university is “not just the most breath-taking modernist ensemble in Scotland, or Britain, but anywhere on earth.”

It looks pretty good the rest of the year too.

The university campus – whether city-based or rural – is (and should be) a privileged space in our culture. It represents an idea of education for its own sake manifested in either Victorian brick or 20th-century steel frame. While tertiary-level teaching is under huge pressure to embrace commercialism, the campus offers an alternative, more welcoming model for students. A place of learning, of sharing ideas. Of interacting.

Stirling University can point to alumni who include a former First Minister (Jack McConnell), writers (the late Iain Banks, Jackie Kay and Alan Bissett), scientists, broadcasters, MSPs, Olympic medallists and the odd journalist. Accountants and CEOs and nurses and carers too.

In this, of course, it is no different than any other university in Scotland. All provide launching pads for students to travel out into the world. But not all have their own loch and castle.