Glasgow was a European pioneer in the use of cast iron and steel for commercial buildings. The use of these modern materials, which led the way to the early skyscrapers in North America, was developed by local architects and foundries to provide cost-efficient floorspace in Victorian Glasgow's thriving business district.
Large-scale production of industrial ironware had began in the area as far back as 1786, the year when the Clyde Ironworks were established in Tollcross.
The rapid urbanisation of Glasgow in the early 1800's had created an unprecedented building boom which would eventually lead to the fabrication of cast iron buildings.
The Carswell brothers, William (died 1852) and James (died 1856), were responsible over a 65-year period for many of the utilitarian premises resulting from this expansion.
The brothers are credited with the introduction of iron castings in the construction of Glasgow's factories and warehouses.
The obituary to James Carswell in the Glasgow Herald of 25th February 1856 states that "they were in their day the most extensive contractors as wrights in the city". It goes on to say that
"the Carswells were the first to introduce iron pillars in buildings, as well as iron fronts and facings; but we mention it as vastly more to their credit that they were the first men who introduced water into the interior of dwelling houses".
The Carswells were starting out on their careers in Scotland around the time when the world's first building to feature iron beams and columns was erected; the Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury, England, which dates from 1797. The brothers are recorded as purchasing land in the Candleriggs area in October 1809 for warehouse development.
Looking at some of the semi-derelict buildings in this area you can gain an insight into how the building styles and construction methods evolved. The example (right) features prefabricated ironwork in both internal and external construction elements. The tell-tale signs of rust let you know that you are looking at one of the earliest examples of cast iron architecture to be found in Scotland. The very slim framework around the windows is another clue that new factory-produced materials were involved in the construction process.
This type of building was an intermediate step towards the fully framed multi-storey structures which were soon to follow. The external masonry was loadbearing; the floors were carried on timber joists or wrought iron beams, supported internally on cast iron columns and externally on the masonry walls.
The green netting in this example is required to protect the disintegrating stonework, rather than the ironwork.
By the time of the Carswell brothers' deaths in the mid-1800's, the industrial areas of the expanding city contained 122 furnaces, burning coal from 37 local pits to produce over a million tons of pig iron annually. An indication of the huge demand was demonstrated on 14th December 1855 when the Glasgow Herald reported that weekly cargoes of Irish ironstone were arriving from Ballycastle, County Antrim, to supplement the flagging supplies of Scottish ore. The rich deposits of indigenous black-band ironstone which had been discovered in Lanarkshire in 1801 were completely exhausted by the end of the century.
Gardners Warehouse
Gardners Warehouse in Jamaica Street, south of Argyle Street, dates from 1856 and is the oldest completely cast iron fronted commercial building in Britain.
Ca'Doro Building, Union Street / Gordon Street
The Ca'Doro building, situated close to Glasgow Central
Station, was completely rebuilt behind its retained façade in 1989, over a
century after it was built. The Union Street frontage was enhanced with two
additional bays, finished with cast iron mouldings which are exact reproductions
of the originals. In the 1920's, the luxurious Ca'Doro Restaurant, which took
its name from the gilded 15th century Ca'doro Palace in Venice, occupied all
the upper storeys. At street level the shops have sculpted stone pilasters
surrounding the cast iron frame, which becomes much more decorative on the
upper tiers. The photograph (right) was taken on a clear mid-winter's day when
the reflective qualities of the glass allowed the windows to be viewed
to their best effect. Thankfully the old building's incongruous 1920's metal
window frames have been replaced with large panes of fixed glass. The natural
light is further augmented by a glazed atrium roof illuminating the central core
of the building.
The ironwork at the upper levels is worthy of close inspection
for the intricate detailing which was designed and cast at the Saracen Iron
Foundry in Glasgow. The window frames are in the form of open ended figures of
eight, a familiar feature of the Venetian style.
Walter McFarlane's Saracen Works were the Scottish counterpart of Daniel Badger's Architectural Ironworks in New York City. Both foundries mass-produced highly ornamental architectural elements which the architects of the time could readily select from manufacturers' catalogues to fit into their designs.
Façade retention, Ingram Street
Many of the most modern office blocks in Glasgow city centre are hidden behind the shells of 19th century buildings.
Not all Glasgow's architects and their clients embraced modern construction ideas. The formation of multi-storey warehouses by traditional methods, however, becomes impracticable once you reach a certain height. The example, left, shows the seven-storey Hunter Barr Building in Queen Street, designed by David Barclay, which was built between 1899 and 1903. The grey lead sheeting at 3 different levels indicates where the wall thickness changes, getting progressively heavier as you go down towards the street. It was built on the "Wedding Cake" principle, where the lower storeys had to be very substantial indeed in order to carry the weight of the upper levels, which you can see are not exactly lightweight!
When this building was converted into modern open-plan offices, as the "Guild Hall" in 1986, it was Scotland's first major atrium office scheme. Behind the massive façade, four distinct steel-framed structures were erected around a central atrium, which has a glazed roof providing natural light to the core of the block. Within this interior courtyard, glass fronted elevators glide up the full height of the building. The atrium concept is intended to provide ample means of escape and containment of fire, should it break out on any particular section.
Hatrack Building
In St Vincent Street, at the heart of Glasgow's business district, you will find James Salmon's slender 1902 office block, the Hatrack.
The Hatrack's integral framework allowed the architect to create large areas of glass surrounded by a minimal amount of decorative stone, giving the façade a lightness and modernity for which Salmon and some of the more adventurous Glasgow architects were gaining a worldwide reputation at the time. The masonry on the Hatrack's façade is merely a facing, being part of a 3 dimensional "curtain wall" which doesn't carry any dead loads from the building as would be expected in traditional sandstone construction. The effect of depth is enhanced by the use of bay windows, recessed arched windows and projecting iron and stone balconies. The building's exterior was tastefully decorated in the Glasgow style, using the same modern construction methods which gave Gaudi the freedom to realise his fantasies in Barcelona around the same time.
I suspect that Salmon was inspired by Oriel Chambers in Liverpool, built in 1864, which features a skeletal frame encased in fine sandstone allowing the use of large areas of glass in its elevations to the streets. Like Glasgow, Liverpool was a trans-Atlantic port and both cities were open to modernistic American ideas. The sheer originality of Oriel Chambers aroused much local controversy in Liverpool. its innovative architect, Peter Ellis, was thought to be extremely daring in a city which took great pride in its conventional English Victorian architecture.
Orient House
The ubiquitous concrete and steel structures of the present era go back as far as the 19th century in Glasgow. The overall theme of the composition is Italian Renaissance, but the use of novel materials gives the building a feel quite unlike other warehouses of the period.
Anderson's experimental construction methods were developed further by one of his former pupils, James Salmon, in the design of Lion Chambers on the east side of Hope Street.
In April 1995 the 7 co-owners of the block were refused planning permission for its demolition owing to the historical and architectural novelty of the structure which made it a category "A" listed building. Protective metal mesh was placed around the external shell to hold together the disintegrating concrete.
Glasgow's most famous Victorian architect, Alexander Thomson, did not restrict himself to designing unique churches and
houses. His warehouses and office blocks are not the ordinary run-of-the-mill buildings of the
day but are further examples of his design genius. Thomson's innovative approach to design reached a new level in 1873 when his most famous commercial work, Egyptian Halls (below), was built.
Egyptian Halls, 1873
Alexander Thomson's Egyptian Halls, on the eastern side of Union Street, is
a well-disguised commercial building behind an elaborate façade. Cast iron columns
support the continuous floors which are bound together with a loose "clinker concrete", which uses the slags of iron furnaces for both aggregate and cement.
These floors would have been ideal for the
manufacturing and storage of goods and are still in place, over 130 years later, in the now unoccupied upper storeys.
There was a £3 million proposal in 1996 to demolish and redevelop the block behind a retained façade in a similar way to the nearby Ca'Doro building. This scheme was unfortunately abandoned when the joint owners failed to reach agreement.
The most ostentatious use of cast-iron in the city can be seen in Thomson's St Vincent Street church where the gallery is supported with rows of slender columns with disproportionately large capitals, featuring maritime and botanical motifs.
I have created a page featuring many of the offices and warehouses of Alexander Greek Thomson. It also features illustrations of his houses and churches built in Glasgow.
Willow Tearooms
In 1904 Charles Rennie Mackintosh added a new frontage to an existing multi-storey commercial block in Sauchiehall Street. In creating the Willow Tearooms for Miss Catherine Cranston, Mackintosh applied his design genius to the interior furnishings as well as the highly individual façade shown above.
Union Bank of Scotland, St Vincent Street
By the 1920's steel-framed buildings were becoming more
commonplace in Glasgow. Local architects were finding the confidence to imitate the monumental structures of North American cities which the general public were now able to see in the movies. In the United States, the 19th century cast-iron buildings had rapidly evolved into steel framed skyskrapers. Steel, which has a lesser carbon content than cast iron, contains other metallic elements to give it the tensile strength which is required for multi-storey construction. In July 2005, as part of an £18.4 million redevelopment scheme, permission was granted to tear down the original floors retaining only the façades and the banking hall from the original building.
The photograph, right, was taken from St Vincent Street and features the south façade illuminated by the midday sun. It was shot in December 2005, during the demolition work on the upper storeys.
New structure appearing from rooftop, September 2006.
If you wish to see further examples of how early 20th century Scottish architecture compared with that in the United States, I have included a comparative study of Scottish and American Carnegie Libraries in my "Carnegie Libraries of Scotland" website.
Glasgow & Edinburgh Architecture
The façades to both Jamaica Street and Midland Street are fashioned entirely in cast iron and plate glass following a simple and graceful pattern. Its designer, John Baird, used the innovative materials to produce a structure of extraordinary elegance and lightness.
Gardners had been in the forefront of the Glasgow furniture trade for over 150 years from 1832 to 1985, when the company was acquired by their Edinburgh rivals Martin and Frost.
In August 2000, after an extensive refurbishment, the building re-opened as a bar/restaurant with the new title of the Crystal Palace. It is now one of the largest and brightest pubs in Glasgow city centre. It has lots of natural light from the seemingly endless glazing to keep the window cleaner (right) very busy!
The glass-fronted warehouse, which was completed in 1872, was designed by John Honeyman
with a high roofed shopping arcade at ground level.
In keeping with the times, the patrons of the luncheon room on the 2nd floor were entertained with live music
from the resident orchestra, as seen in the attached floor plan. The gentlemen could then enjoy the facilities of the smoking rooms on the floor above. The two storey
banqueting hall, an ugly addition to the roof from around 1925, was converted into a popular ballroom in the 1950's. The reconstructed version of the Ca'Doro now has a slated
roof, which is much more in keeping with the rest of the structure.
150 years ago, the providers of warehouse space on both sides of the Atlantic anticipated modern practice where architects can select prefabricated components to meet the needs of commercial projects.
McFarlane's ironwork was shipped to places as far away as India, Brazil, South Africa, Australia and the West Indies.
The above retained façade in Ingram Street was one of three similar developments in progress in the same area during early 2003.
Lead flashings are commonly seen on roofs to provide protection from rainfall but the differences in wall depths in this building are so substantial that protection is required for the progressively thicker stonework at each layer.
This narrow eight storey structure has an extraordinary rooftop, quite unlike any other in the city, which led to the building's title. It was thought more to resemble a piece of ornate furniture than a functional roof.
Liverpool also has what is considered to be Britain's first ever skyscraper, the Royal Liver Building, which was built in 1911. The steel and concrete structure was designed by W. A. Thomas to have 13 floor levels, making it much higher than any comparable building of the time.
Orient House in Cowcaddens, which was completed in 1895, is the best preserved Victorian example of the style. It was designed by William J Anderson, who was appointed as Dean of Architecture at Glasgow School of Art in 1894, during the building's construction. This was the time when the innovative ideas of Glasgow architects such as the young Charles Rennie Mackintosh were in their formative stages.
Anderson died in 1900, unaware of how popular his experimental methods of construction would turn out to be in the new century.
It was constructed with a steel frame and internal steel beams, with concrete floors and ceilings. The external walls have a stucco finish which further emphasise the Italianate style. It had a flat asphalt roof, which is unusual in Glasgow's rainy climate.
In between periods of commercial use, Orient House was used as a lodging house.
It became unoccupied in the early 1970's and, after a long period of abandonment, was converted into flats.
It has been suggested that a fatal accident in 1899 in one of Anderson's unconventional structures was a contributory factor in his early death at his own hands.
Salmon and his partner, James. G. Gillespie, produced a modernistic building which was perhaps too ambitious for 1907 when it was completed. It was built with lightweight reinforced concrete with a conventional outward appearance which disguises the fact that the non-structural external walls are only 4 inches thick. From the 4th storey upwards the tower stands on its own without the support of the adjoining block. On these upper levels there are very small common landings leading to a narrow staircase, less than 6 feet wide, tagged on to the side of the building.
The structure was fabricated with the patented "Hennebique Ferro-Concrete" system, which was widely used for civil engineering projects at the time.
Lion Chambers is currently unoccupied and will remain so until the money and the collective will is found for refurbishment.
A more likely scenario, given the probable cost of renovation, is that the owners will be granted their wish to pull it down.
His earliest city centre warehouses had more in common with his domestic and ecclesiastical commissions, but in 1868 he boldly experimented with iron elements in the frontage for the Buck's Head building in Argyle Street.
The paintwork on the exotically styled external iron pillars (left) was beautifully restored as part of a total make-over which was completed in 2003.
The magnificent frontage has a row of
shops at ground level, which would have created a nice rental income for the
landlord. Above the shops the exterior is different at every level, displaying a highly original selection of exotic themes.
In 1998 the upper floors were stripped back to their original form in preparation for future construction work which never materialised. The sign (left) was clearly visible to all potential developers passing by.
In August 2006 plans were finalised to bring the whole building into the single ownership of Union Street Properties, who intend to carry out a more modest refurbishment scheme than previously envisaged. This restoration involves replacing the existing floors and windows to allow the upper levels to come back into occupation. It is scheduled for completion in late 2008.
I have created a Willow Tearooms Photograph Album showing off both the exterior and spectacular interior of this building.
James Miller, who was a master of many architectural techniques, used American styling for the Glasgow chief office of the Bank of Scotland, which was originally built for the Union Bank. The completion year of 1927 is inscribed in the stonework to assist we students of architectural history. The impressive edifice can be viewed from either St Vincent or Renfield Street, where it dominates the corner.
The scale of the building has to be witnessed first hand. The Ionic columns at the front stretch up over the first 3 storeys, which includes the banking hall which has more office space above it.
The rebuilt structure, completed in the summer of 2007, has six levels of modern office space and a new glazed rooftop storey.
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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.
