Lion Chambers??

[rabmania]

Tom, you use your tongue purtier than a 20 dollar whore. More please.

[Newurbanist13]

Am I crazy to think that it may be useless for offices in the modern world, but would make pretty damn fantastic loft-style flats? If merely the shell and frame and basic services were restored (at whatever vast semipublic expense) and the rest of the fitout left to the flat buyers... Heck, I'd kill to live in space like that, with those windows, in a damn good downtown location. Jes' saying...

[tom clearwood]

here's some pictures from 2012:
the top two are from a cloudy day and the building is... creamy


hope street at bath lane by tom clearwood, on Flickr


lion chambers: the tower by tom clearwood, on Flickr

next two, low sun makes a bright blue sky which turns up the windows (the sky itself is overexposed in these shots and thus appears white):

lion chambers by tom clearwood, on Flickr


north lights with flare by tom clearwood, on Flickr

all the best!
t

[Bridie]

newurbanist13 ^^^ who didn't hang around long had a good idea about living in the loft apartments of these building.

Didn't caretakers and their families live in flats above the offices etc in the town? I know one family that lived above the premises in Renfield St.

[tom clearwood]

well there's a huge amount of office space in glasgow that will become residential eventually, or get demolished. People work in super low cost warehouses or at home, the beancounters won't sanction a glorious, listed, edwardian roof when they get inglorious plastic buildings with car parks, elsewhere.
As for adaptation as stylish flats, that would be GREAT, but the planning and funding systems are incredibly constipated because of the absurdities of "conservation" thinking.
I like human scale flexible reuse, myself...
A flexible attitude towards responsible squatting of long term empty commercial property for example, that would be nice...

[RDR]

Good pictures.
I'm probably in a minority in that I really find that building ugly.

[tom clearwood]

ugly RDR?
I was surprised by that! Of all the buildings to feel that way about... But perhaps you feel only a very few buildings are actually beautiful?
What's to your taste in the city?

[RDR]

ugly RDR?
I was surprised by that! Of all the buildings to feel that way about... But perhaps you feel only a very few buildings are actually beautiful?
What's to your taste in the city?

Good question.
I don't like much that is modern i.e. post 70's.
I'll start with the obvious Kelvingrove Museum.
Like the gothic splendour that is the oldest parts of GRI.
I also particularly like the the Battlefield Monument entrance of the the Victoria Infirmary, where the panther is carved above the door.
The tenements along Tantallon road in Shawlands, the red sandstone ones are splendid and I like the Glasgow School of art building and the Glasow University main building.
Probably could think of a lot more if I had the time.
With the Lion Chambers it is more to do with the material its made of than anything else.

[Rucola]

I see there is one of those temporary firework shops in the ground floor where Douglas the stationer was. Almost as if someone was hoping for an accident.

[Targer]

One can always use a whipping boy.

[Vinegar Tom]

I see there is one of those temporary firework shops in the ground floor

Hopefully it will not put a rocket up this chap!


judge by vinegartom40, on Flickr

[tom clearwood]

it is more to do with the material its made of than anything else.

Ah! dislike of concrete, eh?
I love concrete. Not it's underpass/alienation thing, but its architectural plasticity. Not that we see a great deal of imaginative concrete in Scotland, and when really beautiful concrete buildings stand in the way of the glorification of the men in blazers, down they come. Specifically I'm referring to the Newbery Tower, recently destroyed by the "art" school. Still the lowest graduate employment rate in the UK, sitting on the Maclennan Galleries keeping the public out, but money to waste destroying the heritage of the twentieth century. I'd rather they'd knocked down the mackintosh building, personally.
Now a country that really appreciates domestic and creative concrete? Germany.


art school by tom clearwood, on Flickr

[Bridie]

I could almost go as far as saying that I have a certain attachment to The College of Building and Printing and all the other concrete buildings of the sixties but only from the fact that I remember how modern and clean they looked when they were built. There was a certain excitement in our family when my uncle, an architect, took us round the town via the new Clyde tunnel to view these examples of modernism.
However now I'm more appreciative of the beautiful glass buildings standing next to our amazing Victorian ones - the contrast and the way the old is reflected in the new.

[beneld]

LionChambersfw.jpg

As above what could go wrong ??

[RDR]

it is more to do with the material its made of than anything else.

Ah! dislike of concrete, eh?
I love concrete. Not it's underpass/alienation thing, but its architectural plasticity. Not that we see a great deal of imaginative concrete in Scotland, and when really beautiful concrete buildings stand in the way of the glorification of the men in blazers, down they come. Specifically I'm referring to the Newbery Tower, recently destroyed by the "art" school. Still the lowest graduate employment rate in the UK, sitting on the Maclennan Galleries keeping the public out, but money to waste destroying the heritage of the twentieth century. I'd rather they'd knocked down the mackintosh building, personally.
Now a country that really appreciates domestic and creative concrete? Germany.


art school by tom clearwood, on Flickr

Just a personal prefernce you understand and I'm no Architect!
Concrete has its place and I do like the Glenfinnan viaduct.