Following an international competition to select an architect for the new Reid Building, the Glasgow School of Art selected American architect Steven Holl. Controversially, at the time, the project involved demolition of Keppie’s landmark Newbery Tower with calls for it to be listed, but Glasgow is the midst of a renaissance where post-war buildings are […]
The 1960’s and 1970’s in Glasgow was an era of incredible optimism and change. Whole swathes of old 19th century tenements were being demolished and replaced with new concrete blocks of flats to give families modern accommodation with kitchens, indoor bathrooms and central heating. Speed and fast forms of construction were key to solving some […]
Frustrating for my teachers, but those of us sitting at the window of the classroom had the great distraction of watching the huge metal ball swing up high and then come crashing down into the sandstone masonry of the old building outside the window. Over and over again, the ball swung into the building, forcing […]
Since the days when Glasgow was a bustling port with the river full of ships from all round the world loading and unloading their cargo into warehouses and dock buildings running along the riverside, the city has lost its connection with the river, with some exceptions such as the former City Inn near the Scottish Conference […]
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928) is probably Glasgow’s best-know architect. While recent headlines having been about the fire which destroyed much of the iconic interior of his Glasgow School of Art and the competition to select architects for its rebuilding, the Royal Institution of British Architects (RIBA) is holding an exhibition of over 60 […]
Glasgow has ensured that the Commonwealth Games are an exemplar of long term sustainability – 70% of the 2014 Commonwealth Games venues were already existing, including Celtic Park which saw the spectacular Opening Ceremony tonight, Ibrox Football Stadium, Hampden Park, and the Scottish Exhibition Centre complex in Glasgow, the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh and […]
The elegant and vast neoclassical hall of the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art has been taken over by an art installation on time and space travel by Aleksandra Domanovic the Slovenian artist who has had several international exhibitions, including at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. This is her first solo […]
Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s School of Art, completed in 1909, is one of the greatest buildings in Scotland if not in Europe. In a year where the Scots are going to vote on a proposal for independence, it is slightly sad that it is an American architect who was commissioned to carry out the extension to […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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