Modern but not new buildings

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Modern but not new buildings

Postby escotregen » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:25 pm

Do folks have a favourite 'modern but not new building' i.e. post WW1?
One of my current favourites is Cumbrae House in Bridge Street. It's between the Old Custom Quay buildings at the corner of Carlton Place and before Oxford Street. I see it every time I travel on the train into Central station. I think its a pristine but elegant 'moderne' piece. Unusual use of light coloured wall tiles with a curves effect, and just something that's really works with the colours used. I guess that the architect made use of some sort of geometrical style of method; the subtly different elements are so much in proportion. It's also clearly been well taken care of. Does anyone know anything about it?
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Postby Fossil » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:54 pm

Here's a picture:
Image

One of my Favourites is The Glasgow College of Building And Printing

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Postby escotregen » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:14 pm

Thanks for this Fossil. I think it must be the sort of building that's much better in real life. The tan-like colour of the tiles and the sort-of-turquoise panels, together with the black detailing of the (not visible) pent-house office unit are more strinking 'in the real'
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Postby DVF » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:42 pm

Anything and everything Art Deco. Gimme, gimme, gimme. :D :D

Now, a really modern building that I like. The Greater Glasgow Health Board HQ, Dalian House, on the corner of North Street and St. Vincent Street. It uses all modern materials in a totally modern design but still manages to fit in well with what's left of the classical architecture around it.

Can't find a picture though.
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Postby escotregen » Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:12 pm

DVF I could not make my mind up whether this was Art Deco or not; so I'm happy to take your verification that it is (especially as I too like Art Deco - just recall some of the wee cafes that just about survive, like the one on Govan Road).
Interesting what you say about Dalian House. It was a building that at first I suppose I actually wanted to 'not like'. But as time goes on I agree with what you say about it being happily modern, but also fitting in with it's older surroundings. Inside is another matter. I attended regular meetings there and found it to be a soulless and airless cockpit. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be one of those 'sick buildings' - Ironic when you think it houses the Health Board.
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Postby Bruce » Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:03 pm

Image

I just can't bring myself to like it
... they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.
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Postby Bruce » Mon Jan 31, 2005 4:36 pm

I can't put my finger on why, but I really like the old Scottish Amicable building at 150 St Vincent Street (where opus is - formerly eurasia).

Image
King Main & Ellison (1972)

I'm not a big fan of smoked glass - but I like the fact that it is basically a black building. And there's something about the massing of this building that somehow makes it fit into the street pretty well.
... they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.
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Postby Closet Classicist » Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:24 pm

Yeah agree with you there Bruce, there is something I like about that one too. Think it is how they have broken down the scale and mass of the building by playing with the street line. It probably helps pick up where the old feus for the townhouses that formerly occupied the site would have been. Very International Style but it works and is somehow respectful of the tour de force that is the Hatrack next door.

Personally I really like GD Lodge's (an old Glasgow firm of architects) Clydesdale Bank HQ on Buchanan street opposite the Stock Exchange at Nelson Mandela Place. With its bronze mirror glazing its been done to death in glossy photos and calendars by Colin Baxter et al but I still think it fits into the townscape pretty well. The way the roof steps back gets commended in the Pevsner guide as it helps frame views of St George's Tron Church. A pretty sensitive modern insertion in my opinion.

But my all time favorite has to be the little copper clad BOAC building by Gillespie Kidd and Coia on Buchanan Street just next door to the lane to the Lighthouse. Sensitively inserted there is something about this that is just so right. Absolutely of its time but somehow it perfectly complements the neighbouring Georgian building and then the charming Dutch flavoured original Miss Cranstons Buchanan street tea rooms. Ironically, this sadly empty building, whilst it is the youngest building in that stretch of the street, is now the only 'black' one as all the rest have been stone cleaned!

And sorry guys I absolutely, totally, hate and loath Dalian House! The way it tries to ape tenements in a brick skin just makes my blood boil!
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Postby johnnyanglia » Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:02 pm

There is a quadrangle of tenements in Springboig(1946)which are clearly based on the Karlmarxhof in Vienna. That(They) are absolutely brilliant i love 20's,30's,40's,50's buildings.
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Postby escotregen » Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:04 pm

I agree that there is something about the Scottish Amicable Building. I feel its partly to do with its strange hunched mass being very well suited to the steep incline on which it sits. Bruce, I also appreciated your crediting of it to King Main & Ellison. In the 1980s they were a pretty small partnership when I worked for one of their bigger clients in the tenement rehab business. It wasn't, I suspect, really their forte but they made a good go of it; especially on the listening about the people who would actually be living in the rehabilitated dwellings - not something that everyone in the business thought about!
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Postby rank_bajin » Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:33 am

Bruce wrote:Image

I just can't bring myself to like it


Yup, I dislike it too, but then again all my work filters down from there, and I was in a car accident outside it a couple of years ago, the place is jinxed
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Postby KonstantinL » Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:26 pm

This is a weird coincidence.

I picked up a book called 'The Amateurs Guide to Architecture' by S. Sophia Beale. I got it for a 2nd hand book store (Rousseau & Voltaire or is it the other way round?) took it home and when I flick through it a old newspaper clipping floated out.

On it was an artists impression of a new building that was going to be built in Glasgow, none other than the Scottish Legal Life Assurance building. The coincidence being that it's my favourite building in all of Glasgow.

I can't find the date anywhere on the clipping but there are cars in the artists impression so I'm guessing it was built somewhere in the region of 1920.

The blurb says The winning design for the new building of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society to be erected in Bothwell Street on a site opposite the Y. M. C. A. Building. The successful architects are Messrs Wright and Wylie, 203 West Regent Street, Glasgow

Bizarre what are the chances of that happening!

On the opposite side of the clipping there is some amusingly dated news.

It goes Ward of Lanarkshire Pansy Society and Floral Association was heldin the Town Hall, Motherwell, yesterday afternoon. Provost Archibald presided at the opening ceremony, which was performed Mrs Robertson-Aikman, of the Ross, Hamilton. The entries were lower than formerly. The exhibition all over was of a very high order. Mr W. H. Smellie, Shields Glen, Motherwell, was the most successful prize winner, having 21 premier awards to his credit. Winners of special awards were:- Mr R.Hamilton, Kitchener Street, Motherwell, best stand of fancy pansies; Mr James Smith, Mossend, for vase of clove carnation seedlings; best collection of vegetables (open to amateurs and gardeners), Mr J. H. Bell, Bothwell Castle Gardens, and Mr T. Sommerville, Low Motherwell.

Of course I live in Motherwell which makes this even weirder. I think that bookshop is a magical portal because some really weird things have happened in there to me!
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Postby escotregen » Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:03 pm

KonstantiL sounds to me as though The Gods were using you as a medium through which they have winged notice to Hidden Glasgow of their favourite building in Glasgow :wink: .
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Postby KonstantinL » Thu Feb 03, 2005 9:17 pm

I'd scan the clipping but I'm having TWAIN problems - whatever that is!

Basically these pictutes of my digital camera won't download and my scanner is buggered too!
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Postby Bruce » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:06 pm

Couple of picys of Scottish Amicable Building at 150 St Vincent Street

Image
Image

Closet Classicist wrote: ... But my all time favorite has to be the little copper clad BOAC building by Gillespie Kidd and Coia on Buchanan Street


Image

And a couple of new entries to this category.

The old College of Commerce Building on Cathedral St by Wylie Shanks (1963).

Image

I think this is a great wee building, and sits much better in the street than the College of Building & Printing across the road from it - also by Wylie Shanks (1964). Although I absolutely adore the lighting to the roof of the College of Building & Printing.

and the Bank of Scotland Building opposite GoMA. Competition winning design by T.P. Bennett & Sons (1972) - ever heard of them?

Image

I just think it' a good example of how something can be thoroughly modern (or at least of it's time) and still sit very well in it's context. I particularly like the composition of horizontal & vertical elements towards the corner of Miller St and the way the detailing of the precast units kind of reflects the detailing of the back of the Post Office Building. Also they've been quite successful at matching the colour of the adjacent buildings.
... they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.
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