GLASGOWs
AN
ARCHITECTURAL
By
DA YID
Ask anyone to name those towns and cities in Britain today which represent the most important repositories of our architectural heritage and the likes of Bath, York, Edinburgh and London will spring to mind. But surely not Glasgow? However, within months of moving to Glasgow where I was based for three years from 1980, I was to appreciate just why the late Sir John Betjeman saw fit to declare that Glasgow had the finest Victorian architecture to be found anywhere in the world.
TREASURE
HOUSE
5.
SLOAN
bring in the way of monotonous modern monoliths errected in such dismal abundance during the sixties and seventies. Indeed the massive, almost blank fenestration of large areas of the Glasgow School of Art and the twin stair towers which dominate the front of his Scotland Street School bear a disturbing similarity to that which adorns, or should I say blankets the "glass stumps" of the post-war period of reconstruction and development which are .. so righly reviled by Prince Charles. ·.·
Despite the wholesale destruction of much of the inner city which was wrought by town planners and motorway builders alike during the sixties and seventies, Glas~ow is still endowed with a rich and varied legacy of buildings from the last century. The exuberance and enormity of Glasgow's rich architectural inheritance is especially evident in the opulent 19th Century villa suburbs such as Kenvinside and Pollockshields West - not to mention the city centre which _is liberally studded with some of the more spectacular creations of the architects who dominated the Glasgow scene in the last decade of the last century and the first decade of this one. Indeed, the Glasgow scene at the turn of the century was graced by a veritable galaxy of architectural starts, of which my personal favouraites are: Sir John James Burnett, John A Campbell, J. Gaff Gillespie, James Salomon II, Willliam Seiper and last but not least, the partnership of Donald Bruce and Edward May. One especially famous name who made an indelible impression in sandstone and mortar on the city during this particular golden era was that of Charles Rennie Macintosh (1868-1-928). For all that he is the one Glasgow architect who, above all others, is likely to be mentioned from Land's End to John O'Groats by anyone who is even remotely interested in arch·tecture. I must however confess that he is not one of my personal favourites and strikes me more as a pioneer of the Modern Movement and all that was to eventually
Having said that, there is one elevation and errection of his which is a particular favourite of mine; namely a purpose-btµlt structure which he designed for the "Glasgow Herald" newspaper. This was completed in 1895 and represented his first major contribution to the architecture of the city. Although it was constructed in partnership with one John Keppie of the Honeyman and Keppie practice and Keppie was formally in charge, all the preliminary sketches were Mackintosh's.