People do have quite a knee jerk reaction to Brutalist buildings for a whole variety of reasons. And one of them is that many people think they look quite ugly because they're not ornate. They're not decorative. And they're going through Or maybe over the past 10 years, there's been a a a real rekindling of interest in Brutalism and storing that as part of our heritage and thinking of some of these buildings as heritage items. And there's many reasons why that's an excellent thing and other reasons why that can be a little spurious, especially, you know, some of the large blocks that are being sold off for vast amounts of money way beyond the means of their original tenants in the 1960s and the early 70s.

So there there's huge levels of debates around that and also the role of nostalgia within that too. Like, where does nostalgia come into it and and and is it a positive thing when we look at a building? Is it a negative thing? Is it somewhere in between? Do we have to be thinking about, like, why we're nostalgic for a certain thing?

So it's so fascinating.

Welcome to, today's episode of If Glasgow's Walls Could Talk. And today, we are talking to, Rachel Loughran and Natalie Tweedie about Brutal Glasgow. So to provide you with a wee bit of background on this, both Rachel and Natalie are collaborating with Glasgow City Heritage Trust on an exhibition on Glasgow's Brutalist Architecture, which is to be held later on this year. So as a curator, Rachel O'Loughran will be using the digital storytelling techniques she has developed with great success at the Alasdair Gray archive, and these will open doors to human memories. So buildings stir emotions, especially in Glasgow.

So, you know, we are obviously acutely conscious of that on the podcast. On the other hand, artist Natalie Tweedie is gathering personal stories from lively responses inspired by her popular images that she posts on social media. So the exhibition will dig deep into layers of Glasgow's brutalist architecture exploring stories of those buildings which people either love or hate even when the buildings have been removed from the landscape. So welcome to both Rachel and Natalie.

Hi. Thanks. Thanks so much for having us. It's lovely to be here.

It's lovely to have you here today. So, first off, to kind of give give us a bit more backstory to kind of how you both arrived at this point and kind of how you how you got interested in both of what what it is you do, you know, curating and also these fantastic images that you produce, Natalie. Can you give us both a bit of your backstory?

Yeah. So, I studied textile design down at the Scottish College of Textiles way back, 1997 to 2001. And even back then, my final project involved, tower blocks, and a textile final show was based on architecture back then. So, I've had a lifelong interest in architecture, and particularly brutalist and sixties architecture.

Mhmm. I

think recently, I was more accustomed to drawing and illustrating the Victorian architecture of Glasgow. So it was only last year that I turned my attention to Brutalist architecture in Glasgow, and it just it grew from there.

I I'm a curator, and I specialise in in digital design and exhibits. I I did my MLit at the School of Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art, and that's really where I became more involved in the curatorial side of things and and the digitisation and how those two things might work together. I do come from a literary background. My undergraduate was in English. I studied at the University of Cambridge.

After that, I worked in publishing, events, digital media. So it was really when I was at the School of Art. I met with Sorcha Dallas of the Alasdair Gray archive. And then I suppose it was me combining those two interests, the literary and then also the digital, the curation. As part of my degree show, I worked on the multimedia interactive multimedia show Gray Beyond the Horizon.

We I created an installation which recreated Gray's studio, and the archive is also a recreation of the studio. So there's something a little bit accidentally meta going on there. So I, I loaned the 2014 screen print print of Lanarks book jacket and and that was a collaboration with the Glasgow print studio.

Mhmm.

As you can tell I'm seeing collaboration a lot because Mhmm. That's how I like to work. So working with lots of different joints and and nuts and bolts and trying to put them all together into something something quite cohesive. So in that particular show, the audience walked around this temporary recreation of Alasdair's studio and explored aspects of the novel through scanning QR codes. It now has a permanent home up at the the Alasdair Gray archive.

And since then I've worked fairly extensively with the archive. We have a digital guide about Poor Things. And again, there's been there's been collaborative elements from then, a collaboration with the GFT and and the Oran Mor. So I guess I I'm always seeking for different people, to collaborate with and also, and then, you know, just being really excited about the the multiple stories that can come out of, a piece of art or a novel or an archive.

Okay. Great. So next question then. How did Brutal Glasgow come about? What what was the inspiration for the exhibition?

The easy simple answer is Natalie, and Natalie's work. But, so, you know, my my interest in in Glasgow's built environment has I've always had a keen interest. And that is partly through the literature that I read a few. If you think about work in the 1960s seventies, Alasdair Gray's work, Jim Kelman, Tom Leonard, you know, these are folk writing about place even when they're not writing about place. And and that's always been a a fascination for me so, but also just thinking about structure and and how that's reflected in the built environment.

So you know one of my favorite views in Glasgow is up at the Cathkin Braes and you stand up there the winds often howling and it's just you're at this huge elevation this massive expanse you can look across these buildings and you just think how did it get like that? You know like why is this the way it is? And there's so many diverse buildings architectural styles and one way of looking would be to think about them as markers of political processes. These are presented in brick and stone and of course for our purposes concrete but but when we look at these buildings, we also try and think of our own stories. Oh, that's where I went to uni.

Oh, I can see that spire. And it's the high elevation buildings that really catch our eye. Now some of these have narratives that have master narratives that have have become generally accepted, and then others have stories that we'd never know unless we had a personal experience to them. So what I'm interested in is in what Glasgow specific stories can be evoked from from arts images of brutalist architecture in a different way to to how they can be explored if you're just looking at them with the naked eye or you have no experience with them or you do have experience with them. So I think a lot of our brutalist buildings especially in Glasgow have a bit of a master narrative attached to them and that is the narrative of failure.

And it's not that we are not going to be exploring that to to a certain extent within the the exhibition. It certainly comes into it. But Brutalism is more than just concrete, and a building is more than just the materials that it's made from. It's a store for memories, for for stories, and different ways of thinking about our built environment. You know, there's so many different layers that you can pull back from them.

It would be impossible to pull out all of them, but this show explores not just the overarching narrative that that people might be familiar with and so my interest is what Glasgow specific stories can be evoked from art images. So when people then look at these buildings more than the master narrative comes out or something different that they could potentially resonate with is brought to the fore.

Okay. Over to you, Natalie.

Yeah. I think it's it's very similar. When I meet with people who, and this is online and in person, who are interested in my work and want to maybe buy a print, they'll also tell me about the story, the connection that they have with that building. And that's something that really kind of took me by surprise, that people have emotional connections to these buildings. These buildings are almost, you know, background characters and everybody's life story.

You know, and Twitter is always a place of great debate. So I found that when I started to post the brutalist illustrations, I was getting a real, variety of comments, positive and negative. Mhmm. So, yeah, it's it's gonna be great to explore that in more depth.

Yeah. It's been very fascinating, but I I know exactly what you mean. I remember, when I first started here, the guy walked in off the street one day and I don't know how we got onto it, but we're talking about the College of Building and Printing Yeah. Overlooking George Square and the visceral reaction from this guy who absolutely hated it and thought couldn't understand why I thought it was a great building. And so it was just a complete pile of rubbish and, you know, completely spoiled George Square.

And I'm like, no. No. It's a really interesting building. It's got, you know, fantastic contribution to the skyline. It's like a cross between the Pirelli Tower in Milan and the Unité d'habitation in Marseille.

And how could you not like it? And kind of explained that whole backstory to and it still wasn't convinced by the end of it. It's a complete waste of time. But but it was really good to kind of have that debate about it, and I thought that was that was that was that was really interesting.

Yeah. That that building is the one that sparks the most debate, I would say, on Twitter. You either love it or hate it. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm I'm a talk total fanboy, but I think it's a great building. Really good building.

Yeah. People do have quite a knee jerk reaction to brutalist buildings Mhmm. For a whole variety of reasons. And one of them is that many people think they look quite ugly because they're not ornate. They're not decorative.

And they're going through or maybe over the past 10 years, there's been a a a real rekindling of interest in Brutalism and and Yeah.

Very much.

Restoring that as part of our heritage and thinking of some of these buildings as heritage items. Yes. And there's many reasons why that's an excellent thing and other reasons why that can be a little spurious especially, you know, some of the large blocks that are being sold off for vast amounts of money way beyond the means of their original tenants, in the 1960s and the early seventies. So there there is huge levels of debates around that and also the role of nostalgia within that too. Like, where does nostalgia come into it?

And and and is it a positive thing when we look at a building? Is it a negative thing? Is it somewhere in between? Do we have to be thinking about, like, why we're nostalgic for a certain thing? So it's it's it's so fascinating, the people's responses.

Yeah. Very much. This is, Goldfingers front court.

Yes. Yeah. Balfron and and Trellick as well.

And Trellick Tower as well in London, which are both, I think, really, really interesting buildings. But how they kind of take, you know, high rise typologies and kind of rework them and have a service tower off to the side. I find all that really, really fascinating. But it is it's fascinating to kinda see the response to that and yet they are clearly highly desirable. Some people think they are and and it's sad in some ways.

It's quite nice that that Anniesland Tower is still, you know, council housing.

Yes.

You know, people still live in that and are still able to appreciate things. I have to confess that I am not a fan of the Anniesland Tower, which probably makes me a bit unusual in Glasgow. But coming from coming from Hong Kong, which is skyscraper city par excellence, I do really like a tall building. And I don't know. I just I prefer Goldfinger's work.

So

Oh. What what

what can I say?

There is I I guess you could say there is some just on an aesthetic level, there is some similarity between the look of Trellick and or Balfron and the look of Anniesland Court. We have within the exhibition, we've got lots of guest writers, and our guest writer on on that particular building is is the brilliant Owen Hatherley who's going to be talking about brutalism now, and, you know, what what sort of, images we evoke from that particular building and and also its role as a brutalist building that still chiefly operates under social housing. So it still has social housing tenants.

Yeah. Absolutely. Which is a a a good thing. It still, you know, fulfills its original aspiration. Yeah.

So, okay, I suppose then we'd better kind of explain what is Brutalism. That might help clarify this first for some people because, I mean, the name itself is really obviously gives you a quite firm impression of what it might be, but its origins are quite the the origins of the name, there's there's subtleties to that because it's, you know, from the French term, 'beton brut' which is to do with the the roughness and honesty of the texture of concrete. So and it was how Le Corbusier was using concrete and then other people obviously picked up on that too. And so it is it's kind of the sculptural qualities of and the expression of of materials in an honest way, I think, is is probably where it comes from. And there are obviously some very interesting architects who work within that as an expression and a medium as well, which is great.

This is this is interesting for me because somebody earlier this week, I posted, an image of the BOAC building on, Buchanan Street. So I was I was thankful that somebody else has taken over the unit on the ground ground floor.

Yeah.

I think

I think All Saints had just moved out. So it was good to see that somebody else was moving in, so it's still gonna be in use. But I was saying, you know, it was a brutalist gem and somebody was saying, well, is that Brutalism? And I was like, it's definitely Brutalism. Yeah.

Because it's the sculptural qualities and it's like the honesty of the kind of copper cladding and all of that just wreaks Brutalism to me. But then I kinda think, god, am I wrong? But No. I don't think I am.

Yeah. I've had that debate myself.

It it is one of our buildings.

I know. We know.

And I think, I mean, brutalism has become it's quite an amorphous term. And also, you know, the the coinage of brutalism from Rayner Banham's essay, 1955 essay, where he talks about the work of of Alison and and Peter Smith Smithson. And it's also a bit of an in joke against the new humanism. So there's lots of layers within that. But what interests me in terms of bringing this into to an exhibition space or thinking about Brutalism within an an exhibition space, Brutalism is about image.

It's about memorability of the image. It's one of its key tenants. Banham Rayner Banham outlines that in in his 1955 essay about Alison and and Peter Smithson who really were pioneers, of course, of of the new Brutalism of their particular, brand of of modernism. And before they'd finished their hand Stanton school, it was completed in 1954, They were collaborating with Nigel Henderson, artist photographer, who documented that school under construction. And so their exhibition, Parallel of Life and Art, in 1953, at the ICA in London was all about the photographic image and how it conveyed a set of and a series of meanings.

And those series of meanings were quite different to experience of being in that particular place of going to school or also another example of their work Robin Hood Gardens Estate. Thinking about what it's actually like to live and exist in that place rather than just looking at it as an image. There's something so key to that idea and Brutalism. Those two things go hand in hand. So it's fascinating for me to think about that and then also to think about Natalie's image and Natalie's images and seeing them as separate from the buildings themselves but also connected but also connected to the stories, connected to the history, connected to a legacy of image making.

So it's about playing with all these things and that sounds kinda serious but also there's fun fun elements to it as well. Like people's stories about these buildings are sad, funny, and also just everyday. Just normal people, like, living their lives. And Yes. I think, Natalie, earlier you spoke about the buildings being a minor character within that.

Now that's fascinating in itself. How something that so shapes our movement and our day to day life whether we get in a lift, whether we if like me, you climb up 4 flights of stairs and you're puffing and panting at the top or what whatever it is. If you can open your back window into a garden, like, all these things really make such an effect on our existence except they're just so natural in what we do that, yep, these buildings, they're just minor characters. We walk past them. We we move around.

You should take them for granted.

Exactly. They

do they do form this backdrop to your life, which makes them to me really important. And I I I'm definitely interested in all the stories that you can tease out from that. And it's funny, I tweaked this when I first got asked to do walking tours for Doors Open Day. This is way back in like 2020. I did one of the very first ones and I'd never done a walking tour before and was really terrified that I would suddenly be exposed as not being a Glaswegian.

And and, everyone would rumble me and it was like, oh, no. And, and, unfortunately, I took my Glaswegian other half with me and my mom who gave me all these lessons and you must turn around and you must talk to the people, not the buildings, Niall. And it's like, yeah. Okay. But I realised as I was doing that that what really switched people on was the human stories behind the

buildings.

And if you just did kind of this is, you know, this is kind of a, an Italian Renaissance building or something, people would just glaze over in about 5 seconds flat. And I've I realized that really quickly that if you needed to keep your audience, engage your audience, you had to have a human element to the whole thing. And that humour and things like that were really important, but it was definitely those human stories that people really appreciated about anything.

Yeah. Good for me.

Okay. So more about Brutalism generally. What what do you think the kind of impact of Brutalism, you know, in Glasgow in particular? How did how did Glasgow respond to to Brutalism?

That's such a huge question.

I mean, there are obviously some very good brutal buildings here and some very good brutalist firms as well. Gillespie, Kidd and Coia.

Mhmm. Yes.

Really interesting work.

Mhmm. Definitely.

I mean, I get

the same question when I presented this project, last year and conveniently illustrated 12 to fit a calendar, obviously. But, you know, is it Brutalism? Is it Modernism? And that can spark huge debate as well. For me, Brutalism is and this is why I love these buildings so much, and I would consider the Boak building to be brutalist even though it's not concrete constructed.

But it's for me, Brutalism is is a vision of the future from the past. Mhmm. And that's why I am fascinated by it and engaged with it. Is this kind of futuristic vision of Glasgow from the sixties seventies?

Yeah. It is contentious, as Natalie was talking about earlier, these these knee jerk responses to Brutalism. So for some folk, Brutalism really is just a byword for ugly. For some, it's concrete. For others, it's iconic whether you agree with that or not.

I think for many Glaswegians, it is failure, though.

Yeah.

And the story of the CDAs in the late fifties from sort of 1957 onwards, and the 1960s and seventies, and the sheer rate and speed that the Glasgow Corporation erected these buildings is absolutely phenomenal and totally transformed our landscape in such a short space of time. Myles Glendinning, in his section, he's writing on the Gallowgate Twins. He he recounts a relatively untold story about the CDAs and and how the the word comprehensive, is maybe not quite the right one, within within the planning structure there. So he tells a story, and it's it's about municipal ambition and ethical conviction that that went into and so, Natalie, you spoke about that thinking about this idea of the future from the past. Well, Miles' piece explores that, but from a personal account, he focuses on on the councilor David Gibson and and and why Gibson and the housing committee so wanted these buildings in the city centre so quickly, and it explains why they were built in a relatively short period of time, but also brings a human element to that because there was a huge ethical conviction to bring these buildings to give people new homes.

And Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that is so prominent or the failures or the the the so called failure the thought failure or the demise let's just say of these buildings. So many that have been pulled down. It's very hard to look at them and not correlate those later experiences of eighties nineties and and even that is very complex as as well.

You know, why didn't these buildings work? Well, again it's very complex and and there's more to I just think there's more to these buildings than than that one particular narrative. And and you're right. Glasgow, Gillespie, Kid and Coia were were a Glasgow firm who have so many buildings. We have two of them in the in the show, which is Our Lady in Saint Francis School, which is no longer a school, but it's still there.

It's a listed building and then also the BOAC building as well.

Yeah. Both really interesting building. Yeah. I think their their work is extremely interesting, but notorious for leaks as well, which was part part of the problem. I don't know.

I mean, I think I think part of the problem is that it's it's what you've kind of summed up there. It was the scale. It was so much all at once. It was the sweeping away of the kind of the old neighbourhoods and all their connections. And then people are putting these new buildings, which are very pioneering.

And quite often when you do something like that, that kind of what I'd I'd call a great leap forward, it doesn't always work. It doesn't always gel. It doesn't fix, and you get backlashes against it. And then sometimes something doesn't work, and it becomes hugely controversial. So Hutchesontown E for instance.

Yeah. Those are really interesting buildings and kind of a sort of graphic sense when you look at the kind of the imagery of them. Really fascinating. But my understanding was it was a French, construction system from the south of France, and therefore, trying to apply that to a Glaswegian climate was possibly not a good idea. I mean, they were notorious for the dampness and mold inside them.

But when you kind of when I look at them with my architectural hat on, and I look at that kind of super graphic that runs all over it, they're really cool. But they just they just didn't work. So which is a problem. And then Basil Spence's, Queen Elizabeth Square blocks, which are amazing, but also kind of deep deeply flawed. And I do now think it was a great mistake demolishing them.

I think if we could have looked to retrofit them somehow and tried to make them work, and maybe maybe they weren't suitable for everybody, but there would have been, I'm sure, an audience who would have been interested in those buildings. They were really powerful pieces of urban sculpture.

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard in the past that they were trying to create, with the Queen Elizabeth Square buildings, Gardens in the sky, which I think is such a hopeful idea. And I think a lot of the residents, when they did move, originally were so positive about the move. They'd moved from Tenemants , living, single ends into these houses with space and, you know, you know, on two levels with outdoor access.

But, yeah, the location, and the height of these buildings, in the south side of Glasgow, with the rain lashing off you, it's maybe just, at, you know, a point of the wrong location as well.

Possibly. I just think it was it was probably the technology wasn't quite there yet.

Yeah.

And and I think we've kind of ended up paying the price for that. And the funny thing is that it's like other countries, you know, which have had great, public housing, you know, programs. There's sort of places like Singapore and Hong Kong. You know, they learned all the lessons from our failures here, and they've done it so much better. And you you look at that kind of current generation of buildings, which are incredibly ambitious.

And the whole gardens in the sky thing, some of a huge I I guess they're getting to the point where you call them archaeologists in, in in Singapore, and they really do have gardens in the sky. They're incredibly impressive, but they understand that kind of need to get you know, you have to have a amenity space. You have to have these it's not just housing. You have to have all of the other stuff that you need as a backpack to get the housing and a community to properly evolve. So they really do understand that.

It's a complete different way of thinking.

Absolutely. And because of glass, the the great need and great urgency to relocate people from tenements, then a lot of a lot of that was shortcuts and people didn't get access, to to the amenities that they needed. And then of course concrete concrete is not a new material, but it was new to be used to that level and and scale at the time. Yeah. And it does stain and it can look very ugly with the staining on it.

But and and also I think predominantly the Brutalist buildings we think of in Glasgow are social housing high rise flats but Brutalism is very very diverse and those buildings ended up with a very bad reputation Yeah. For crime. And also during the Thatcherite era, a step away from the idea of public housing being a positive thing. Yeah. I think I still

think that's really tragic.

I really do. Absolutely. Yeah. I absolutely agree. And suddenly, the idea that you lived in one of these flats put you into a social group that was was not aspirational, which is Yeah.

Is just so demeaning. And there are also other Brutalist buildings such as, you know, Chamberlain Powell and Bond's Barbican Estate. There's, Denys Lasdun National Theatre. There's Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral. You know, these are hugely hugely diverse or, the Cardross, of course, by Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, which is is now derelict.

So the diversity of of Brutalist buildings is is also huge but Glasgow seems, you know, we're we are fixated on on the tower block and and in the UK more widely the idea of the tower block is either, you know, very riche skyscraper who's competing to be the tallest building in Central London or it's oh these towers towers of terror And then, you know, I guess we're somewhere in between now where folk are going, oh, well, you know, there's so some of the towers of terror and others are, you know, wonderful places where, they they have a concierge at the front and, you know, it's the the end of Portobello Road. So Yeah. Yes. We'll pay a lot of money to to be in this icon.

Yes. Absolutely. What do you think explains kind of the the new interest in all of this? Do you think it is kind of sort of future nostalgia as it were, to quote Dua Lipa? Sorry.

I can't resist that one.

Well, I think I think some kind of nostalgia, is inevitable. Yeah. Some sort of of nostalgia is potentially inevitable with any building era that people are priced out of buying. So Yeah. You know, maybe the slightly cynical stance on it is that in order for a building to become popular, there needs to be, some kind of coterie around it allowing that to happen and that tends to be the people that are going to make a decent amount of profit out of it.

Possibly. I think it's also time as well. That time after a while, you begin to appreciate why somebody had done something a particular way. So I mean, looking back, I'm looking at when I was at the art school, there was the Newbery Tower directly opposite the back, which has obviously now disappeared with the rebuilding hadn't been constructed. But that and that was that was Keppie Architects who also did the Bourdon building, which, I still have mixed feelings about the Bourdon building.

Possibly because it was a really tough course being there, but I I think looking back in it and the kind of it was really windswept at the base of it. And the corduroy concrete, I remember feeling it was really rough and quite unpleasant. But now I look back on it, and I think actually that was a really good building. And it perhaps, and I recall discussing this with some of the, the team in care piece who had worked on those buildings. Their problem was that because of everything that happened in 1970s with the oil crisis, the spike in inflation on the back of that, They just didn't have the money to kind of produce it as kind of polished as we would perhaps now want to do it.

And so that explains some of the issues with it. But it was still when you look at the whole diagram of how that works, you've got kind of Louis Khan, served spaces, and service spaces, and the expression of that, that was actually a pretty good building.

Yeah. I like the Bourdon. I think I got a a new appreciation for these buildings when I start to illustrate them because I start to really see it, you know, I I don't come from an architecture background. So I really get a true appreciation when I'm having to illustrate it. The nearly killed me, when it was illustrated.

It's the work of a madman, I would say. It's so complex, but I think it's always gonna have a tough gig. It's it's across from, you know, Charles Rennie Mackintosh masterpiece. Right.

You get quite a few of of the Mac from it.

Yeah. What

you're used to at least.

Yeah. So, you know, it's you you couldn't get more of a contrast

Yeah.

On opposite sides of the street. But, yeah, it's a bizarre build and it's like a massive

It's like an aircraft carrier. Yeah. Stuck in stuck in a hilltop, which is actually perfect for that era of kind of, super studio and, you know, things extending. It's it's got a real, who's like JG Ballard. Great kind of JG Ballardian feel to it.

Definitely. So which I quite actually quite like now, which is funny.

Well, it's a space that form and function do actually meet and and have a real purpose to them instead in terms of, yes, you have those huge lengthy studios that are are designed for collaborative work, or certainly shared spaces within that building that is made possible by its, by its form. So, so certainly it certainly keeps to to some of the tenants of of the original tenants of Brutalist. But, of course, it's a bit of a pick and mix when you look at Brutalist buildings like we've it's very high but there's not a lot a lot of light and space around it if it's crowded in the city centre or and So it's yeah. A bit bit of a pick and mix, an architectural pick and mix.

Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Moving on to next question then. Why did you want to collaborate with GCHT?

Well, for me, I mean, Rachel will be the best person to talk about this, but, yeah, it just seems like the natural place, the natural setting to showcase Glasgow's Brutalist heritage.

I agree with Natalie. I think partnering with with the Heritage Trust is a huge part of what can make this this very collaborative show a success. Like, not only will people be able to see it at Doors Open Days in September, which will just encourage more people to access it, to to look at the show, maybe they wouldn't have heard of it otherwise, but then also there's there's key aims that are are shared within this project and with the Heritage Trust that make a very good partnership. The whole focus of the show is is about people's engagement with their historic environment, which is also their present environment as well, which is quite exciting to me. And I'm thinking about using buildings, people, for for people to create a sense of of place so that they can be part of some kind of legacy making building machine.

What what I'd really love is is for folk to to come into this show and as they then make their way around the city and look at these buildings in situ is to think about and even better if to share some of the stories that Brutal Glasgow tries to tell then they become very much part of that that legacy building process that Glasgow City Heritage Trust is focused on. You know, and, of course, we have this sort of knowledge share between the trust and and ourselves. And if folk then look at any other building within their environment to think, I wonder what's behind that. Like, I know maybe I can look into the architecture a little bit more, but there's gonna be a story behind that. So hopefully, it will engage people or will give people renewed interest in in buildings they might walk past.

I mean I cannot tell you how many times I walked past the BOAC building without looking at it and it's fabulous. It's a spaceship essentially on Buchanan Street. It's an amazing building and it was one of the first buildings I think I saw that Natalie had had illustrated and what fascinated me about it was how green it looks in Natalie's picture really reflecting that copper. When you look at it you you see the sheens of copper through it, but it's also has quite a dark this blacky, browny sort of, lots of different hues in there. And it's quite shiny of when the light when the light is on it.

So and and the idea that Natalie was building or creating her buildings from composite images. So images from long periods of history, different angles, and then trying to to and very successfully creating a single image that reflects bits of that. To me, I I thought, ah, this is this is interesting in and of itself that there's a multi there's a sort of composite making of stuff. And actually every building is this, like, making of stuff, and it was quite cool how that was reflected in the in the artwork as well. And and I see any collaboration like that as well.

There's a bit you can take from every single partnership. There's a building of network there. There's, and then something concrete, made at the end, you know. I'm really trying to avoid avoid that. I I see concrete every day in my life right now.

And it's not concrete at all. That's the thing. That's a wonderful thing.

Abs absolutely. Yeah. I I love that building because it's it's the white heat of technology. It's that seeing that the interior is all which has sadly been lost, when it was original. It's funny.

I call it BOAC, but boy, I suppose. Yeah. Absolutely. I can see why you both say that. So I don't know.

That's because I I think I actually flew on BOAC, which probably gives away my age. It's when you see that interior and the idea that the kind of the angling of the the the ceiling was to do with, Concorde taking off and a very steep angle of Concorde taking off because it has to get, you know, way up into the stratosphere before you can have a sonic boom. I just think it's such a nice touch. I think it's really, really interesting building. I mean,

you can just imagine somebody at board meeting like, I have an amazing idea.

Abs Absolutely. So I think it's great. I think it's also I mean, it is ironic that it's ended up being the darkest building in the street because everything else got stone cleaned afterwards. And it was meant to be contextualized and kind of, you know, fitting in with the street and it's ended up, you know, sticking out. But I actually don't mind that because part of Buchanan Street's character is it's a whole series of buildings, which will make you you've got the homogeneity of the stone.

And there is quite a large degree of classical architecture in there. But it all still hangs together really well. It's got it's got really good parataxis, which is a great great term. It's got the whole street kind of speaks somehow, and it's just Mhmm. Yeah.

It's nice nice and convincing. And so I really like how it how it represents that particular era in that street. I think it's great. I think it does it really, really well. It's a great building.

Yeah. It's my favorite builder in Glasgow. It's amazing when you speak to people though that they they don't they don't remember seeing it. You have to Yeah. Give them directions to it.

And I think it's because from an angle, it follows the same rhythm as the building next to it. Yeah. But it's completely the polar opposite. It's Yeah. You know, like Rachel says, it's like an alien spaceship just landed Yeah.

In between, these Victorian buildings.

It's like it's it literally was camouflage originally, and now it's standing out Yeah. Which is which is quite funny. It's a it's a really, really interesting building. The flip side to that whole question is why did we agree to this collaboration? And I I think it's one, I love your artwork, Natalie.

And I love your sensibility, Rachel. And also because Brutalism I just think because it's kind of got that contentiousness about it, because it's something that's kind of undergoing through this whole kind of critical reevaluation and people are beginning to connect to it more, I think it's a really interesting and under recorded facet of Glasgow's, architectural history and legacy that we need to kind of have a have a proper look at and have kind of critical reevaluation of. So I think it'd be really interesting to be able to do that, to get encourage people to talk about it and realize what what's important or possibly not important to them.

Yeah. I I think that's right. And that that is another element of the show that, that we will be working on on on social channels to get people to to feedback their responses. And and there are ways in order to incorporate that in the show by doing sort of live feeds and updated feeds on it. And so I'd like this to be as wide and collaborative, as as possible.

And I'm absolutely fascinated to hear people's responses not only to the to the artworks and and how they may differ or be similar to the buildings themselves, but the content because there's only so many stories you can tell and each is curated by, or or written by a guest writer, and so each is curated to tell a very particular story, but there's loads that we won't be able to tell. And that's where other folk can come in and and give their own views whether that's an architect from an architectural perspective or social perspective or a lived experience perspective. And these are all the little building blocks that are going to to to enrich the show, and that's again, like, why I think the the partnership between the Heritage Trust and and, ourselves is is really vital in that.

Abs absolutely. What about what about you, Natalie? What do you want to get out of the exhibition?

Well, it's it's a huge honour to be able to showcase my work, for a project which I felt so passionately about. What Rachel said about hearing those additional stories from people, people's connections to the buildings, I never tire of that, and, that's what I'm looking forward to.

Good. So what what about the kind of the build buildings themselves, and how did you go about selecting them for the exhibition?

Well, a lot of the buildings, I picked because to me, they're aesthetically appealing. There's got to be something there for me to that's visually appealing, to be able to to start to illustrate them. I did conduct a poll on Twitter to find out, you know, I'm going to be doing another drawing next month. What would you like me to draw? And I got loads of interest from that.

So that was great from a research point of view. But, yeah, they've got to be visually appealing to me to get my interest. Like the MET Tower, the Glasgow College of Building Print is just fascinating to draw. You know, and there isn't a lot of because of the position of it in Glasgow City Centre, you don't really get that front on photograph of it. It's always from an angle.

So, I do like the challenge of illustrating the building as a whole from a perspective that you wouldn't normally see from the street. Sure. And obviously, that challenge of taking something that people perceive to be quite ugly and brutal and concrete and gray, and to really transform that into something that somebody else would consider a beautiful image and to really highlight with artistic license, obviously, you know, the the the differences in the materials and the building quality. So for instance, the black, it's copper clad. It maybe isn't as as green, and as as, you know, coppery in in real life, but I I take those elements and try and exaggerate them.

Mhmm. How do you how'd you go about drawing them?

So I draw everything on an iPad.

Right. Okay.

So I don't do sketches. I'll a lot of the time, I'll use, Google Maps

Right.

And then Google Street View to get different angles, particularly for the, because you can go back in time on Google Maps. So you can, you know, and you can travel up and down the street. Now the was particularly, challenging to draw because there isn't, you know, a kind of composite photograph of that. It's always in sections, and it's always down that streetscape or look it up to Scott Street. So it's really, really difficult to get a proper photograph of it.

But, yeah, Google Maps traveling up and down these photograph streets to try and basically look at the building and then map it all out on on iPad.

That's fascinating. The way that you draw them, it's very flat, very graphic. So it's really interesting. I didn't know about your textiles background. So that's really interesting to kind of because I can see the connection between the two now.

Yeah. I mean, I think when I look at the buildings and I look at the, the different materials that are used in the buildings, I love drawing concrete. I love drawing the texture of concrete, the colour of concrete. You know, it's a strange hobby to have, but I really enjoy it. And I love being able to depict, like, particularly for the college building, all those different windows.

You

know, how do you how do you draw something like that and make it look visually appealing and interesting and not just a series of, you know, 200 windows. So it's it's picking out the textures. It's picking out colours and and contrasting that against stone work and concrete.

Mhmm.

But, yeah, I think my textiles background is key to every, illustration, you know, featured on this exhibition.

Mhmm. It's just it's a really there's a really interesting quality to them, and it's kind of like it's sort of like a bit like a screen print. It's very don't take this the wrong way. It's very sort of 1950s . It's kind of got a little bit of kind of the, of what was the great post war exhibition in London.

Oh, the Festival of Britain.

Festival of Britain. Sorry. But, you know, it's got that kind of, yeah, it's got a really interesting quality to it, which I really appreciate.

Yeah. That's great to hear because that's what I try and aspire to in my illustration is that kind of mid century feel of those, you know, sixties illustrations. Yeah. I try and, pull that that influence in that era into my illustration, so that's that's good to know.

No. It's well, it has connected with me. So which buildings have you kind of ended up going for and and and why?

So after I approached Natalie, I sort of approached Natalie with a very simple question of have you ever thought about exhibiting your work? And, and so then when when I had sort of positive response from that, I looked through the Brutalist buildings that Natalie has in her portfolio. And the next thing was was was thinking about okay so where could somebody tangibly move through in space as they connect these buildings and how how could I use each of these buildings to tell a little bit more of the story of Brutalism in Glasgow, a little bit more of the brutal Glasgow story and how could we possibly do that in a in a kind of timeline. So when folk arrive at the gallery space in in on Bell Street at the at the Heritage Trust, you know, they'll be going on this virtual journey around Glasgow and throughout that they'll be going on a timeline as well. So on the walls, you'll see our our eight buildings and there, Annieslands Court, the Pontecorvo building.

We get to that's in the west end. We get to the city centre. We've got the Bourdon the Pontecorvo.

Yes. Which is sadly being demolished. It has

been It has been

Great great Basil Spence building and I regret never having been in the, Paternoster lift. Yeah. I've always wanted to try a Paternoster lift just to see what I like.

No. I I never went inside that building either, but I watched its, you know, slow slow demise.

I know. Yeah. It's a great great shame actually. I mean, because it was just so like a kind of 1960s computer punch card in terms of elevation, which I thought was intriguing.

And again, it was it was designed very specifically for its purpose. It was part of the great sort of brutalist campus, how we can, how we can build campus buildings cheap, affordably, but also very functionally. And so, it it had quite bad staining and and, you know, this this, again, will be covered in the show in the show, why didn't it work, what worked about it, why it was significant at the time, and also its relationship to the other buildings within the campus as well was was quite quite vital. So that's one of our our west end buildings. And so then again thinking about how you might walk to the next one or our next set are in the city center.

There there's 4 of them. We have the Bourdon, the Savoy, the BOAC, and then and then the Met Tower. Then we go out long over to the east end and we have Our Lady and Saint Francis School and the wonderful Gillespie Kidd and Coia building and then the Gallowgate twins or Gallowgate towers right at the end of that. So you can either travel around the exhibition starting at the Gallowgate twins and then you would travel through Glasgow from east to west, that would be from 1957 to present day, always of course looking across various timelines within that but really just to give people a sense of what was happening in in in a social sense and a political sense at that time. And so we think about how that year has a relationship with the building.

Or you can travel the other way where you'd be starting at Anniesland court in the present day and you travel backwards in time. And it doesn't matter which way you do it. Each building has curated content and that's contributions from guest writers, stories from folk with personal relationships to the buildings, video, audio content all in this interactive format. The other thing you can do is pop into the heritage trust and take a postcard. And if you scan that at home, then you can navigate the show online.

That's really fascinating. I mean, when I knew that we were doing this, one of the things I did, because I was out in that neck of the woods anyway on a site visit, is I went and had a look at Anniesland and was like, I am going to reevaluate my opinions of this because I think I'm being unfair. And actually, Anniesland court is really interesting. I think my beef with it is more it's the base. It's how it hits the ground that, kind of Anniesland Cross.

But I don't think that's part of the original building. So I think that's a separate thing that's been added onto the original building. But I don't really know because I don't know how you'd tease it all apart. But it looks like 1980s were.

It was funny when I was illustrating that building when it got to the bottom floor, I thought, what do I do here? Because from the street, you know, you've just got that kind of extra brick section, which is kind of added onto it. And I thought that was a real challenge as to how to finish off the ground floor. So, yeah, wee bit of artistic license was used in that section.

It's really odd at the base because when you go around the back, it's got this kind of very, seesaw, like, you know, roof on it, but it's totally incongruous. It's like Yeah. That must be 1980s . It can't possibly be original. But I just don't know.

I'm not sure. I don't know enough about it.

I couldn't find any original photographs of that section. Otherwise, I would have reverted back to the original plans.

Well, I am sort of knee deep in archive work at the moment. So, I I can't make any promises, but I'm I'm hoping there will be some original photos of the building in there. And, yeah, it was also refurbished in in 2006 fairly extensively. Right. And if I've got my if I've got my dates correct.

One thing I think fascinating about that building though is it's sort of in this weird no man's land. Like, you're not quite in Rishi West End. You're not in, like, suburban West End. You're not at Bearsden yet. You've just gone through the tunnel.

You're you're sort of kind of close to the hospital. You're you're you're kind of everywhere in that crossing, and it it feels like it does feel like a a crossing space, like a space that doesn't necessarily have and feel free to disagree with me, and I'm sure there'll be folk that that that do, especially maybe folk that live there. But it doesn't feel, as an outsider, like its own place. It feels like it's in the middle of places. And I've never been up to the top of it, but I'm going to try and rectify that soon.

But I've been That's

been up with doors open day before in the past.

That's right. That's right.

So, yeah, I must I must try and do that too at some point because I would be genuinely interested.

Because what do you see from up there? It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. But also just, like, whatever floor you're on, you're gonna get an incredible angle. And I'm wondering if you're up the top there, you feel like you're in a a wee bit of a no man's land or you actually feel like in the centre of this world around you.

I'm not sure. I'm I'm interested.

Completely different experience from ground level. Yeah. Ground level around there is really strange because it's like you've got kind of, to the east with, the huge red sandstone tenements. It's like full throated just prior to the First World War Glasgow where they're obviously really going for it, then you kind of leap across to the west and it's 1920s , a really interesting 1920s , kind of city architects department tenement complex with balconies, which is pretty enlightened. And then the other side of it is, like, pure suburban.

Then you've got the rug rugby pictures. What is it? Glasgow Academy's rugby pictures? Oh, I don't know. It's one of the public schools rugby pictures on it's high school.

Yeah.

I think so.

On the other side. And so the whole thing kind of spatially doesn't really hold together at all. It's totally disparate. And as a cross, it's it's probably close goes weird as a cross because it just doesn't gel.

Yeah. It's that terrible traffic junction as well. Half the time you're just trying to figure out what lane you should be in to look at the aft I was trying

to walk across it and it was a bit uh-uh. I know because I was trying to get decent photographs of the cross as well. I was, like, walking up the traffic island at the center of it and, like, acutely conscious that I shouldn't have been there. All these people going past you in a car at speed kind of looking at you. What's what's this idiot doing?

Just trying to get a decent photograph. Sorry about that. Yeah. Fast it's a fascinating place. Okay.

Going back to kind of, you know, the personal aspects of this and what were your kind of personal responses to these buildings? And, you know, how how did they connect to you?

Oh, such a huge

question, Megan.

One thing that I enjoyed about this project, and it wasn't something I was conscious of at the start of it was cataloguing or, depicting buildings which are no longer there, buildings which are now demolished somewhere like Graphical House, you know, with that fantastic signage on the outside. Always loved it. Just from a purely aesthetic point of view, Love the signage, love the building, but obviously no longer there. So something which I didn't say out to do, but something that I really value now is being able to depict our catalog buildings like Pontecorvo, like the Gallowgate Twins, like Graphical House. It's a record of buildings which are no longer in Glasgow.

So

What about you, Rachel?

I was just thinking about that, Neil. I was in terms of a personal connection with each of these buildings. I actually don't have a personal connection in a very straightforward way. I went to the art school. I did my masters at the art school, but I wasn't really in the Bourdon building much at all.

Mhmm. So what has interest me throughout this research process is learning more about the buildings and then developing meaning from there. And so my process of working is also hopefully a little bit like the process of experiencing the exhibition just from a slightly different angle, thinking about these buildings from a different perspective, discovering things I didn't know about them, trying to put that together in a cohesive timeline, trying to take people round Glasgow, showing them that there is a certain route that they can follow or they can diverge if they want. Like, even though it it's in a timeline, you can jump to whatever building you want. If you you're gonna be able to understand the exhibition if you come in and you look at the the Bourdon first because you have a connection to it or if you only wanna read about the about Anniesland Court, the story is there for you.

So it's more about accumulating knowledge and accumulating interest in in each of these buildings and buildings that I didn't really know anything about originally. So, Our Lady in Saint Francis is a building. I'm from the south side, and I think it's like it's one of these things, isn't it? But in Glasgow, we all know the West End. We know Byres Road of the West End anyway.

Beyond that, if you're not from there, are you really gonna travel out there? The same with the East End. I have no reason really to go to the East End in my life and nor do most people that are from the south side. Why would I travel to the East End unless I had somebody there? And the way that we tend to socialise and and interact with others, we are staying in our our little enclaves.

So it's been also nice in some sense just allowing the city to open up a little bit more. And I spoke earlier about looking at the Cathkin Braes and thinking, you know, trying to point out these buildings. And then later on when I'm driving around Glasgow either to do a recce of these buildings or just driving about Glasgow thinking hang on that's that building that I've seen from this angle and if I stand at the top of Queen's Park I can see it from a different angle. When I'm in my flat I can sort of see other bits of it. So the whole excitement about these buildings for me is that they are little fact finding, entities that that that allow me to see things totally differently.

And hopefully, other people will have that that same experience.

Absolutely. I completely appreciate. I mean, that's kind of the way that you kind of get to know and to understand the city. And I would say that my Glasgow my Glasgow experience in , obviously, I didn't didn't come from Glasgow. And when I was at the art school, I was living in the West End.

So I knew the West End, kind of the route from the West End into the art school and kind of roughly the area around the art school most of that time. But when I finally made the decision, having been back to Hong Kong, worked in Berlin for a while, that I was gonna stay here. And then I finally decided I was gonna get to know the city. It's things like that discovering aspects of the city that that had been really kind of quite enjoyable and discovering whole areas that I didn't know. And lockdown was great for that as well, just going for really long walks around the city and getting out into the east end because I really didn't know the east end.

And that I really, really appreciated. So and I did for a while work on, there was a church way out in the east end, Shettleston New Church, which is way out Shettleson Road. And so having worked on that and having to have to get out there to appreciate it was funny because at that time, and this is way pre COVID, they were demolishing the 2 twins in the Gallowgate. And they were literally it was like they had this big kinda contraption around both of them that kind of ate the concrete, and they got basically, you know, they it was like seeing them disappear down to ground level with this enormous contraption around them. That was quite something.

But at the same time, once you kind of walk out, along the Gallowgate, and I'm doing doing this through lockdown, and you appreciate just what a huge rupture all of that is in the city fabric as well. That must have been this phenomenal street and kind of, you know, late Victorian, Edwardian times up to the 1st World War and up up probably until the sort of late 1960s when the comprehensive development areas start appearing. And it's kind of

completely lost its cohesiveness. And it's trying to see how could you piece that together and how those towers fitted into that context. But at the same time, it's also something that really fascinates me about Glasgow because it's not kind of in the same way that Edinburgh, you have kind of these two cities that were built side by side in kind of the old town and the new town.

In Glasgow, it's all layered up on top of each other. And I keep talking about that in this podcast, but I really like that aspect of Glasgow. It's kinda you get these really kind of weird butts spliced together kind of you jump from being in a Victorian city to being in this hyperfuturistic city and and, you know, like the Anderston Centre. You come out of the grid and you're in this completely different part of the city, and yet you're literally just 2 minutes walk from one to the other. I really like those aspects of Glasgow.

It's just such a a fascinating place as a consequence, and it makes me warm to it a lot.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's at the heart of my work as well. It's a huge affection for Glasgow. So why not document these buildings? Why only focus on, you know, the the Victorian architecture?

Why not celebrate these buildings as well?

Absolutely. I appreciate with both of you both being away from Glasgow. You've come back. Is that part of your kind of whole experience?

Yeah. I mean, at the centre of all my work is a huge affection for Glasgow, and that's something that's only grown since, speaking to people that that buy my work is that shared affection, for Glasgow. Yeah. I lived in London after I graduated. I only managed about 18 months, and it really made me appreciate Glasgow.

That's all I can say.

I think when you live away and I've lived on and off in London since 2009 for long stretches of time and shorter stretches of time. I mean, I'm actually sitting in London right now. Rather than my own flat in Mount Florida which is a tenement built in 1900. There is something about being away from the place that you're from and the place that you identify with and that being intensified by it. And maybe that sparks a different kind of interest in what these buildings are and why you because for me there is a sense of homecoming when I see those buildings.

Even now when I'm I'm in Glasgow a good chunk of my year. So with every single building there's a sense of like this is my home. This is where I'm from. And also the fact that I do think I do think there has been so many changes, let's just say, you know, within the last 50, 60 years within or 70 years within within Glasgow's architectural landscape that the people and the architecture and the stories about them and also the way we feel about ourselves are very is very much reflected within that. You can see that in art.

You can see that in literature. You can see that in the way people talk about the place that they're from. If you think about Glasgow's Victorian architecture, it has its its own own stories to tell about part of that story is obviously Glasgow's complicity with the the slave trade

and Mhmm.

And then also Glasgow's civic pride. It's about the identity of the Clyde side. It's about red Clyde side. It's about so many different layers of our of our history. And also, when you speak to people who are not from Glasgow, there's a couple of responses.

Oh, Edinburgh's very beautiful, is one of them often or the others. But, oh, is Glasgow is is it not a bit rough? And because they they hear the stories of high rise buildings and that still per pervades, but but there's so much more to it than that. And and so I think our how we think about our our buildings is important to to how we think about ourselves. And and there's ways of being more more cogncent of that or not.

You can be a very active participant in your relationship with your city. You don't have to be. You You don't have to be at all, but you can be a very active participant in that. And, there's lots to be proud of and there's lots to to think about and and how that relates to our identity.

Do you think it's to do that the the reason why there's kind of a sort of nostalgia for these buildings and the kind of, emerging kind of renewed appreciation of them is because, people are kinda conscious that they come from an era when the city still had a real ambition and a sense of vision for itself and and where it was going at the time. Whereas now kind of this thing on Twitter with this mental health and well-being survey of countries around the world that was recently published that the UK came bottom in it and, which kind of was a bit depressing. And the kind of sense that, you know, the direction of everything is kind of a bit stalled and nobody's quite sure where we're going at the moment. Do you think that's what it is? That there was a very positive this is what we could be in the future whereas now it's like the future is quite unclear?

That'd be something to do with it?

Yes. That that seems very thought out.

I don't know. It's just the

It could be. No. I I agree. I I agree. That absolutely could be because I don't know.

Do people really think about the utopic idea, you know, when they look at the buildings or do they just they're like, oh, that's ugly or are they like, I used to go to school there or, or it was better than my old school? If if you're from an era that you existed or you lived in a

I don't know. It could it could just be me. It's like my reading habits are really weird because I I split my reading habits between history books and science fiction books. So I'm always kind of exploring other kind of parallel worlds and kind of, you know, where where things have been and where they could go.

Yeah. I think if if people are reflecting on that as a nostalgia, then there should be something going on that makes it not a nostalgia to aspire to better communities and better housing for people.

Completely agree.

So if we can turn nostalgia into some sense of action and direction for Glasgow as a city, architecturally, and also what follows on from that confidence in in our creative ability, confidence in our our sense of self or or Glasgow as a whole being proud to be from this city not in a insular way but to think okay we're gonna build good communities for people we're gonna build good buildings for people we're gonna enhance folks' lives just from the way that they move around the city. So my hope is that, yes, if people are feeling a sense of nostalgia for the utopic ideals that were first instilled into these buildings, Although a lot of them, the the idea is less utopic certainly within the Glasgow context and more practical. We need houses for folk and these are better. Yeah. So there's those practical are those practical needs too.

But if they are thinking this this was the sign of a new time, great. Let's turn that nostalgia into action.

Yeah. Very very much. Natalie, any thoughts?

Well, I think if you ask any Glaswegian when they see, a photograph of the Savoy sign it's just pure nostalgia

you know I think

maybe that's the test of your of your Glaswegian ness but yeah for me that's you know, it's it's like Billy Connolly's banana boots. These things are etched into the back of every Glaswegian's mind, and one of them is the Savoy the Savoy facade.

Uh-huh. Very much. It's it's such a period piece that now.

Yeah. It's

great. It's a really stylish piece of work. It's great. It's just kind of that kind of self confidence. And the thing is like in most new buildings, and this is not a kind of I don't think this is completely unfair, but the New Gorbals did this really well where they integrated art into into buildings.

But it's not really something we've picked up on since

Yeah. Which I

kind of feel is a bit of a shame, and yet it's also present in so many brutalist buildings that they were. They weren't just art in themselves. They had really good bits of sculpture incorporated

into them. Definitely. The facade, even just down the side of the Savoy, get into the side door. These Yeah.

It's fabulous. That's that's better.

The foam Yeah. Freezes. Yeah. Brilliant.

The the funny thing about that building is it's sort of back to front. Like, a lot of the real interesting architectural textural moments are the side and and then what we might think of as the back where you think of the front of the building as being Sauchiehall Street. Yeah. And, yeah, it's a fabulous place. I mean, as as part of the the show, I do go running around the club with a Zoom mic.

So I don't know how much, I don't know how much of that those interviews I can actually pull into the show itself. So no promises, but it was hilarious. I can highly recommend A Night Out in the Savoy Club.

Okay. That's a first. Okay. Where to next in terms of your your partnership and, you know, what you'd be discovering in this kind of this first collaboration, and do you have any plans for future development?

I would quite like to get through this first. At the moment, I'm very, like, stuck in archives. At the moment, we're still in quite a I wouldn't say foundational stage, but it's not too far far off the foundations and really pulling this together. The next stage will be really trying to make this as cohesive as possible.

Mhmm.

And then actually part of the fun stage is bringing this onto the wall and how we're going to do that. So I have ideas about the design. I have a design plan within that, but that will that will change slightly as as I go into the space and and and work out how people will physically interact with that space down to the simple level of how much room they need. Sure. I love working with other people.

I like collaborating. I like drawing in information, ideas from lots of different people. If there is a way of, expanding this exhibition with with Natalie, with the Heritage Trust in some kind of another way, I'm all ears because the more you you run back and forth with ideas, the the sort of more expandable these things can become. At the moment, I'm very focused on on trying to get this this show as as tight as we can we can make it. But, yeah, there's always places to go with collaborations.

Always unlimited.

Great. Natalie?

Yeah. I think maybe in terms of Glasgow, I've probably exhausted the brutalist buildings by 1 or 2, but, there's always East Kilbride. There's always Cumbernauld. There's, you know, there's a whole world of brutalism out there

to explore. The town center in Cumbernauld does not look long for this world Yeah. Sadly. So I know there's tons of discussion about it at the moment, but, yeah. So I guess it's kinda watch this space.

But

I agree. And what might be interesting see, I've just got an idea, Niall. I've just got an idea. Because this is very Glasgow specific, of course, we're talking about Brutalism as an architectural movement, as a philosophy, as a style. These threads come through it.

And so a larger conversation about Brutalism inevitably happens within brutal Glasgow within those Glasgow stories. But every single one of these new towns also has a a story to tell as well Yep. Via its architecture. And that's something we we touch upon because it's inevitable within the within the brutal Glasgow story. But the fact that you can look at, a large movement such as Brutalism which comes, you know, which is a modernist movement.

If you can then break that down into little sections, okay, we've got the Glasgow story. We've got the Cumbernauld story. We've got an East Kilbride story. And how they connect to a larger story of, of sort of garden suburbs and and the like and also it's a different different things. So there's lots of satellite areas that connect with this.

Very much. If you're looking for some great imagery, actually, I can recommend, Urban Newtown Corporation's kind of master plan for for Urban Newtown because the illustrations in that were drawn by Angus Kerr who's kind of an extra retired director of, BDP. And, his illustrations are fabulous, but it was this kind of great Japanese metabolist vision of what what what has eventually become a thing as the Rivergate Shopping Centre, which, kind of is was supposed to be this mega structure that kind of went from the town center bridge to River Irvin and then extended all the way out into the Forth of Clyde. And it was just the most amazing drawings of this kind of straight out of kind of, Tokyo Bay. It's fabulous.

If you ever get a chance, that's that's you'd really enjoy them too, Natalie. They are great architectural illustrations with kind of very primary colours used in them, and really really very very enjoyable. But I I suspect it was a vision that was in no way deliverable. But back to It's traditional. Yeah.

To have that vision was great. It was it's really interesting. So I could definitely recommend that if you're kind of sifting through the archives. If you come across that, wow. That's something else.

So it's interesting.

Okay. Great. The final questions then. And we ask everybody who comes to our podcast this question. I suspect you might have answered this already, Natalie, but we can always go back to it.

And that is, what is your favorite building in Glasgow, and what would it tell you if its walls could talk? Who wants to

go first? Well, I did mention this earlier, and it's the BOAC. The alien spaceship in Buchanan Street. Yeah. What more could I say?

Yeah. Great great building. Looks as it was done with a scalpel.

My favourite building in Glasgow, it's not a brutalist building. It's, one we all use frequently or most people use frequently, and it's Central Station.

Same as me.

Oh, no. Okay. Well, it's not a competition, but I like it more. Central Station, I'm sure it's loads of folks' favorite building as well. And there's a couple of reasons for that.

Architecturally it is such a showboat this is Glasgow welcoming folk in off trains it's absolutely fascinating from from that perspective and just the way that you can look up and you have that elongated stretch into this fabulous greenhouse of people waiting and coming and going. So there's that aspect of it, the magnificence of it. But then there's also, it is a place of homecoming when you're coming and I've been away living on and off in Glasgow and London. Coming home on train from London into Central Station is a magical magical feeling and listening out for Glasgow accents is is brilliant and feeling at home and and I that is very deeply rooted. I imagine I mean if if Glasgow's I don't know if it would tell me if its walls could talk.

I don't know if it would tell me its secrets, but I'd love to know like what dates went on there who met under the clock?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Who got stood up? What was the date like? Did you try and get away? Did you have an emergency phone call from somebody? I want the gossip.

Okay? That's what I want from Glasgow Central Station. I want the gossip. And I'm sure I can provide a wee bit of gossip myself from from, you know, many meetings in Glasgow Central, but I won't divulge.

I know. It's funny. I remember having a debate with somebody on this, online about it once, and this other person was going on how how much better it was to live in Glasgow's West End than the south side. And that my retort was and this was to quote Vincent, Scully, the great American architectural historian, when he talked about the demolition of Penn Street Station in New York. And that, you know, the replacement, the difference between the two was like, you know, you could enter the city like a goat in one of them and then the other you were scurrying in like a rat.

And I was saying, you know, you come via the subway from the west end whereas I get to come into this amazing train shed every day. What's not to like, you know?

Oh, great.

Which I thought was a nice retort. So Natalie, what about you then? Going back to the the the BOAC building, what would its walls tell you if if, you know, they could talk?

Oh, I have no idea. For me, it's just a a glimpse into the past, isn't it? It's a glimpse into another era. Mhmm. So maybe it would tell me what it what it would be like to live in the future.

Completely different to now anyway. So

Yeah. The future is never quite what you think it's going to be.

No. Definitely not. I think I would much prefer to live in a sixties vision of the future than now probably, but they're certainly more optimistic.

Yes. I suspect you're right. Well, look, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to the 2 of you and I am really looking forward to the exhibition and seeing what the 2 of you combined produced because I think it's gonna be really fascinating. I think it's gonna be one of our best and I'm I'm really looking forward to it.

Thank you so much. It's been great chatting. Definitely.

Yes. I've really enjoyed chatting to you guys too.

Glasgow City Heritage Trust is an independent charity and grant funder that promotes the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of Glasgow's historic built environment. Do you want to know more? Have a look at our website atglasgowheritage.org.uk and follow us on social media at Glasgow Heritage. This podcast was produced by Inner Ear for Glasgow City Heritage Trust and is sponsored by Tunnocks.