Glasgow is a large city by both Scottish and British standards and much of its interesting architecture is outwith the city centre. Peoples Palace, Glasgow
Beyond the City Centre and the Merchant City lies Glasgow Green by the banks of the River Clyde. The Peoples Palace Museum stands in the centre of the park.
Glasgow University, East Façade
The beautiful east façade of Glasgow University at Gilmorehill in the city's west-end displays the best example of Gothic Revival architecture in Glasgow. The architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott, was based in London where he enjoyed a great reputation for Gothic styling. In his long career he worked on over 500 ecclesiastical commissions, particularly Anglican churches.
At Gilmorehill, Scott took advantage of modern construction methods and materials to produce a mediaeval styled campus on a grand scale. The new University opened on 7th November 1870, but it would take another 17 years for the huge steeple to be completed, some 9 years after the death of the architect. Scott had designed a number of churches for the Scottish Episcopal Church before being commissioned for the University. He would later go on to design the Episcopalian Cathedrals for both Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Art Gallery & Museum, Kelvingrove - North Façade
The city's Art Gallery and Museum in Kelvingrove Park, west of the city centre, re-opened in July 2006 after an extensive refurbishment. The 3 year programme involved the restoration of the old character of the museum, returning it to a condition closer to the original design intentions. There is a more efficient use of space, as much of the area previously used for storage now features new display areas. There are 22 themed galleries including one dedicated to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his contemporaries.
Glasgow is of course famous for its passionate football supporters. Unfortunately most of the older structures used by the major clubs have been demolished and replaced with modern state-of-the-art stadia, with the exception of Ibrox where the new stadium was built around the old. Hampden Park
Hampden Park on the south side is where the Scottish international football team play their home games; it also serves as the home of Queens Park FC.
Ibrox Stadium
In the 1920's Archibald Leitch was the favoured architect of
Glasgow's major football clubs. He was responsible for the new stands for both Celtic
and Rangers.
Celtic Park, Glasgow
Also in 1929, in the same year as Rangers, the new stand at
Celtic Park was completed. Archibald Leitch's façade was composed in red brick
with a few decorative touches. It was demolished as part of the stadium's redevelopment
scheme which was completed in 1988, ready to celebrate the club's centenary.
Glasgow born Leitch, who trained as a Mechanical Engineer,
also designed the grandstands for over a dozen English clubs including those at
Stamford Bridge, Goodison Park, Villa Park, Highbury and Hillsborough.
Caledonia Road Church, Gorbals
If you cross over one of the many bridges from the city centre to the south side of the River Clyde you will arrive in the Gorbals, which until the late 1950's was densely populated with street after street of tenement houses. These tenements were pulled down in the following decades and the inhabitants were moved out to new housing schemes such as Castlemilk which had been developed on the city's edges.
Scotland Street School
Glasgow's "Clockwork Orange" subway system will take you to Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Scotland Street School, which is near to Shields Road station.
While Glasgow's was the European capital of Culture in 1990, funding was found to restore the building to the original Rennie Mackintosh designs for both interior and exterior decoration.
It has served as Glasgow's Museum of Education since 12th December 1990, and currently features period classrooms, exhibition space and an audio visual theatre.
Glasgow & Edinburgh Architecture
This page provides a brief tour of some of these buildings, most of which are not too inaccessable to the casual traveller.
Glasgow Green was public space on the edges of the earliest city boundary before the city's massive expansion of the 19th and 20th centuries led to the absorbsion the surrounding villages and hamlets.
The Peoples Palace was designed by Glasgow's City Engineer and Surveyor, Alexander.B.MacDonald (left), in his preferred Renaissance style.
As its name suggests it is intended as a popular museum featuring the history and folk culture of Glasgow. The exhibits are unpretentious, as you would expect from a museum devoted to the city's down-to-earth population.
It was opened in 1898 by Lord Rosebery. who had briefly been British Prime Minister from 1894 to 1895.
A century after it first opened the People's Palace re-opened on 3rd April 1998 following a £1.2million refurbishment.
At the same time as he was working on Glasgow University, Scott produced his best known secular work, St. Pancras Station and Hotel in London, where industrial ironwork and concrete came together with Gothic masonry to produce a truly marvellous structure.
Aware of Scott's flair for their preferred style, the University had offered the commission directly to him rather than setting up an architectural competition open to local architects. This did not go down well with Glasgow's architectural establishment, particularly with Alexander Thomson whose highly original buildings had consistently demonstrated a variety of both Classical and exotic pagan influences. The association of Gothic Revival with the resurgence of Anglo-Catholic medievalism in the Church of England in the late 19th century would probably have been behind much of this hostility.
The Kelvingrove building dates from 1901 when it was fashioned in the Edwardian Renaissance style by the London based partnership of Sir J.W. Simpson and E.J. Milner Allen, whose competition winning entry was selected ahead of some noted local architects. The main feature of the north façade, shown above, is the twin towers either side of the entrance which is guarded by an imposing statue of Glasgow's patron saint, St Mungo, by George Frampton. The south façade, which faces the street rather the park is less elaborate but is equally well-proportioned, featuring a large central entrance flanked by elegant towers.
In 1901, the newly opened galleries formed part of the Glasgow International Exhibition which took place in Kelvingrove Park. When the exhibition's temporary pavilions were demolished, the impressive north frontage of the Art Galleries was left facing landscaped parkland rather than Argyle Street as would be expected if it had been built independently of the exhibition.
Whereas most Glasgow architecture of the early 20th century was in sandstone, the football stadia were all built in red brick, which is not common in Glasgow.
I managed to draw the various football façades before their demolition.
The south stand at Hampden, which was demolished to make way for the new Scottish National Stadium, had a unique character. It featured a symmetrical frontage which was a mixture of native Scottish and early 20th century modernism. The various elements were added by different architects over a period of time. The twin towers, which were the main attraction, were one of the later additions to the building.
Rangers' 1929 grandstand replaced an earlier structure which had
collapsed in the Ibrox disaster of 1902. The façade (above) survived the
modernisation of the stadium in the early eighties and is now a category "B" listed building. The Edmiston Drive entrance to
the stand is of monumental scale , built in red brick with large arched
windows. It still presents a daunting appearance to visiting teams and their
supporters.
Caledonia Road Church in the heart of the old Gorbals was left without a congregation and abandoned in 1962. Sitting surrounded by wasteland and derelict buildings, as well as young vandals, it was destroyed by fire in 1965.
The frontage shown above still survives and it has been recently floodlit at night to become one of Glasgow's attractions, rather than a derelict eyesore.
This was Alexander Thomson's first church in the city, being completed in 1857. It was built in a grand scale with a strange combination of Italian and ancient Greek styles placed side by side. The western side of the building follows the line of Cathcart Road to give the church an unusual asymmetric layout.
Thomson's famous Glasgow buildings, including his other south side church at Queen's Park, are featured in my Alexander Greek Thomson page.
The building is of a most imaginative design which would have been ultra-modern for its day. It features twin towers infilled with leaded glass which at night twinkles in the lights of the nearby M8 motorway. Both the stonework and interior decoration show Mackintosh's genius with a novel style which is entirely his own.
The Reverend Alexander Simpson, Convenor of the School Board of Glasgow, formally opened the school on 5th October 1906. It remained in use until 1979, when it had to close as there were not enough pupils to continue in operation.
Mackintosh's other architectural works in Glasgow can be seen in my Charles Rennie Mackintosh page.
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Site created and maintained by Gerry Blaikie
Unauthorised reproduction of any image on this website is not permitted.
All original artwork and text Copyright© G.Blaikie 2002-2008.
