Shell urged not to demolish modernist HQ over carbon emissions fears

Architects, academics and climate activists launch campaign against plan to knock down five-storey building in Aberdeen

Aberdeen is arguably best known for two things: granite - found in nearby quarries and used to construct almost all of the coastal city's buildings - and oil. After the discovery of a significant reserve in the North Sea in the 1970s, Aberdeen became known as Europe's oil capital and a thriving oil and gas industry sprang up in Scotland's north-east.

At the centre of the boom was the multinational company Shell, which built a five-storey modernist headquarters in the city's Tullos area, from where it operated for half a century, before moving this year.