Architecture 1
For a Wee Country: Architectural Contributions to Scottish Society since 1840 (Stirling, till 20 May; then touring)
National remnants
Gavin Stamp
Glasgow's annus mirabilis as 1990's European City of Culture conveniently coincides with the 150th jubilee of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scot- land. In fact it doesn't, because although the Institute of Architects in Scotland was established in 1840, it soon collapsed in dissension — perhaps infected by the fissiparous tendency of contemporary Pres- byterianism — and the present incorpora- tion was only founded in 1916. Never mind, it is still a good opportunity to A side of Glasgow untouched by Culture: the ruins of Alexander 'Greek' Thompson's Caledonia Road church surrounded by tower blocks in the Gorbals celebrate Scottish architecture in general and the buildings of Glasgow in particular.
This travelling exhibition consists largely of original drawings from the RIAS's own collection. It has been organised by Charles McKean who, as Secretary, has done much to reinvigorate Scotland's architectural institute at a time when the senior Royal Institute of British Architects seems to have forgotten its original role as a learned society. Nationalism is McKean's theme, and the inspiration of the RIAS, because it was founded to 'foster the study of the national architecture of Scotland'.
This, of course, begs questions about what, if anything, is Scottish. The mid- and late Victorians came up with Scottish baronial and the revived harled castle style, but the glory of Edinburgh is as the `Athens of the North' and Scottish architects have excelled in interpreting the wider European classical tradition: Adam, Hamilton, Playfair and Thompson. Alex- ander 'Greek' Thompson, was of course one of those Glaswegians of genius who made something personal and distinctive out of tradition. Believing that trabeated Greek construction was somehow more Scottish than the barbarous Anglo-Saxon Gothic imposed on Glasgow University by Gilbert Scott, Thompson produced bril- liant, eclectic buildings without parallel in England and Europe. What is sad is that today many of his finest works are in poor condition, in contrast to the buildings by that other intensely individual genius nur- tured by Glasgow, Charles Rennie Mack- intosh, who had strong roots in Scottish traditional architecture.
Oddly, both Thompson and Mackintosh are represented in the exhibition only by photographs of drawings, but the latter's original beautiful drawings for his cele- brated School of Art can be seen in the Glasgow's Glasgow exhibition (a spectacu- lar show under the arches of Central Station which merits a separate review).
McKean normally proclaims both a bel- ligerent nationalism and an ideological commitment to modernism, which coin- cided in his earlier vain attempt to discover an authentic Scottish modern movement. In this exhibition and its catalogue he is more moderate and tactful, being content to chart through drawings and photographs the recent history of a nation which has provided Britain with a disproportionately large number of gifted architects. But the real theme of the exhibition is the rise, fall and rise again of the Scottish city — hence Glasgow as European City of Culture. What happened in Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s was not unique, of course, because the same tendencies were spoiling cities in England and elsewhere. But just as Glasgow managed to erect the highest tower blocks in Europe, so it almost succeeded in outdoing the late Conducator of Rumania in urban renewal.
Another exhibition, organised by the Glasgow Institute of Architects in Stirling's Library, celebrates the city's architectural riches in excellent photographs. It is sober- ing to realise that every one of the build- ings illustrated, whether Georgian, Victo- rian or Edwardian — with the single exception of the city's gaunt, noble mediaeval cathedral — was to be swept away in the plan for Glasgow prepared by the city engineer Robert Bruce in 1945. A plate from this is a chilling exhibit in the RIAS show, for central Glasgow was to consist of nothing but motorways and isolated tower blocks.
Unfortunately, something of this vision was achieved in the Gorbals, while the heart of Glasgow was bisected by a motor- way. But what is remarkable today is how the city has recovered from the cultural revolution of the 1960s by rediscovering its past. In marked contrast to poor, sad London, Glasgow now manifests a vigor- ous, vibrant urban civilisation, while the city's wounds are slowly being healed by a renewed respect for the grid plan and the traditional tenement. Yet it seems to me, as an Englishman, that a convincing new Scottish urban tradition has yet to be created. Glasgow is full of new shopping centres in various post-modern styles, yet the buildings could be anywhere. Only in the all-pervasive graphic influence of Mackintosh mania is a distinct Glasgow style evident. Otherwise, the character of the old city is changing, with red brick replacing stone as the standard building material, while several polychromatic brick buildings seem as alien as they are discor- dant.
I wish the RIAS exhibition had been more nationalistic, because the question of what a modern Scottish architecture might be is an important and fascinating one. There are undoubtedly good young Scot- tish architects around, but Glasgow has not yet recovered its special role as a city with a vital and individual architectural culture. Perhaps the last worthy manifestations of that culture were the modern churches by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, that enigmatic and now legendary local firm which pro- duced some of the most interesting architecture in Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s. In principle, there is nothing wrong with English architects working in Scot- land. This is still the United Kingdom, after all, and many Scots, like Adam, Burn, Shaw and Spence, have flourished in the south. But it does seem rather a pity that the Burrell Collection, the most suc- cessful new building in the city (in terms of attracting visitors), was designed by an Englishman.
On the other hand, it is fortunate to be able to blame an Englishman rather than a Scotsman for the two worst new buildings in Glasgow. One, sad to relate, is the Concert Hall, now nearing completion. This large pile at the top of Buchanan Street is partly redeemed by being faced in stone, but its curious fusion of the most arid mechanistic modernism with echoes of stripped classicism makes it a building which might have looked well in 1955 in, say, Leipzig or Sofia.
Even worse is the Royal Scottish Academy of Drama and Music, a building which offers blank, crudely modelled and hostile elevations that fail to relate to the Glasgow grid and are made of a peculiarly repulsive pink brick, while a polygonal structural corner enclosing a non- concentric glazed cylinder provides the city with a prominent feature of painful inepti- tude. Both these cultural monuments were designed, ultimately, by Sir Leslie Martin.
Why the proud city that produced `Greek' Thompson, C. R. Mackintosh and J. J. Burnet, amongst other giants, should have turned to an old and doctrinaire knighted English modernist is hard to understand. In architecture, as in other spheres of life, I must agree with Sir Walter Scott: 'For God's sake, Sir, let us remain as we were born, Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen, with something left of the native impress of each.'
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