Bernat Klein Studio
Architect: Peter Womersley
Year of completion: 1972
Location: Selkirk, United Kingdom
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Latest update 30 July 2025
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Bernat Klein Textile Design Studio
Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, in coalition with leading Scottish heritage and design organisations, have been successful in buying the Bernat Klein Studio at auction today, saving the modernist masterpiece for the nation.
The Bernat Klein Foundation (BKF), the National Trust for Scotland and Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (SHBT), announced last week our hope to save the Bernat Klein Studio from ruin and create a new venue to inspire creative arts in the Scottish Borders.
At auction today, the building was secured by the coalition for £279,000.
A small group of people with a genuine passion for the work of Peter Womersley has been trying to save the beautiful Bernat Klein Textile Design Studio in the Scottish borders for many years and boost Womersley's reputation. Joining with the Womersley and Klein families, the families of the architect’s close friends, professionals, public figures and enthusiasts, they want to raise awareness of the Bernat Klein Design Studio and its architectural, cultural and historical importance: add your name to their list of supporters and help them achieve their goal: above all, help them engage with the owner to see it restored and preserved in its original form.
Please get in touch with Preserving Womersley if you can help.
Peter Womersley: Modernist architect, sculptor of concrete, creator of spaces, master of detail. In 1972 Womersley completed what is likely his most celebrated work, the Bernat Klein Design Studio near Selkirk in the Scottish Borders.
A multi award-winning, A-listed building the Studio was commissioned, owned and occupied by Womersley’s client, textile designer Bernat Klein, a man who introduced vibrant colour into the Scottish textile scene selling his rich textured tweeds to Chanel, Christian Dior, Nina Ricci and Yves Saint Laurent amongst many others.
Latest News
Preserving Womersley E-Newsletter, 30 July 2025
The BKF coalition successfully bids to buy the Bernat Klein Studio.
Threat
Sold in the early 1990s,the Studio served as office space until the early 2000s when it was acquired with the idea of converting it into a residential dwelling. After an initial positive flurry of development activity, the Studio has spent most of the 21st century awaiting this repurposing. It is now in need of much restoration if it is to survive: burst pipes, flooding, broken windows, neglected metalwork and unfinished repair work have left it in a precarious state.
Source: https://preserving-womersley.net/the-studio
News Archive
There has been a series of articles in the Press about the Bernat Klein Studio starting with this article by Gabriella Bennett in The Times, March 7, 2019, ‘Designer’s studio ‘may have to be demolished’ (look out for the Paywall).
This article followed in The Herald by Rosemary Goring on 13th March 2019,
‘Owners must be compelled to maintain A-listed buildings’,
to which Rev David A Collins responded in the same publication on 14th March:
‘Now is the time to reassess our redundant listed buildings’.
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Bernat Klein Studio
Peter Womersley
1972, United Kingdom Scotland