Let us have courage to dump the past and build a new future

PLEASE join me in wishing that someone in high civic office has the resolution to pull down the ghastly Alexander "Greek" Thomson- designed Caledonia Road Church presently preserved like a cadaver on the south side of the city of Glasgow. Let's also have the nerve to push over the unattractive sandstone faade standing, purposeless, in Ingram Street.

Remember why we schooled ourselves into our current preservation policy? Because we had pulled down so many irreplaceable buildings in slum condition at a time when there was no money to renovate them and an urgent need to replace the housing stock.

To maintain this indiscriminate life-support for all old buildings is wasteful and cowardly. A mature alternative would be to adopt a review mechanism that slowed and scrutinised proposals for demolition and then made recommendations based on taste and on knowledge of the architectural scheme for replacing the building. The latter is essential. Another reason for the current knee-jerk preservation has been the notorious failure of so many modern designs to meld with the surroundings. It was a sensible and green reaction to call a halt to the damaging demolitions of the 1950s and 1960s. We now have the cash to preserve the best and we ought to have the courage to dump the worst.

One of the most interesting, satisfying and useful books ever published in Scotland was produced in 1965 in celebration of the Commonwealth Arts Festival of that year. Don't ask what that festival was - it's long forgotten - but the book it gave birth to, Glasgow At A Glance: An Architectural Handbook, is still prized by those who own it. This small volume, pocket-sized, contained 217 photos of prominent buildings in Glasgow together with a single short paragraph to accompany each image. It was a work of genius because it introduced the citizenry to their environment and to the possibility that Glasgow might, after all, be a place of architectural interest and prestige rather than a notorious slum city.

The photos of buildings were arranged chronologically and included the most sublime Victorian constructions - such as Cleveden Crescent, the hopeful modernism of the Festival of Britain cottages in Queen's Drive and the sinister Spence, Glover and Ferguson housing blocks in Hutchesontown.

The evaluations were muted, never intrusive and left the reader to absorb the data rather than be bullied into an expert's orthodoxy. Glasgow At A Glance was like the best history: it was succinct, loyal to fact and reluctant to speculate. In that way it encouraged and educated the reader. In less than an hour, anyone could pick up the changing shape and styles of the city architecture, starting with the 13th century Glasgow Cathedral and ending with a chapter on "The Future" which included some frightening draughtsman's impressions of what was to pass during the following decade.

Long before Glasgow was a City of Culture (1990) or, indeed, Architecture (1999) it had convinced everyone who forked out 8/6d that Betjeman was right and that we lived in the finest Victorian city in the land. The catalogue also made it obvious that just because it is old, it is not necessarily good or worth preserving - St Andrew's Cathedral on Clydeside is a particularly unsuccessful building, intended to revive the Gothic style but actually without the necessary scale and proportion.

We need the confidence to dump the past at the right time and the will to devote the resources over a planned period to constructing the future using the highest standards of our time. The alternative is not dishonourable but it is disheartening: a life in a museum where the vision from another society determines ours.

When the Nazis razed Warsaw, they destroyed the very beautiful medieval town centre as well as the substantial vibrant capital city shaped over the preceding centuries. The Poles, impoverished by the war, without any measurable living standard and devoid of foreign currency, replicated the medieval centre in its entirety, stone by stone. The spirit of the Polish survivors is evident in the achievement, but it is impossible to feel that it was worth doing. What took national sacrifice and determination seems like the much greater but insubstantial theme parks and entertainment centres of our era. The abiding impression of Warsaw old town is of willpower rather than imagination.

Let's agree that it is beneficial to invest in exhilarating public buildings. While there is dissent about the cost of Holyrood we should remember what it symbolises and how appalling it would be if the parliament were merely adequate. If it costs half a Dome, so be it. It is our legacy to the future.

New money has endowed new life to older buildings and allowed people to re-inhabit forgotten quarters of the cities. When St Jude's Free Presbyterian Church in Glasgow's West George Street became the Malmaison Hotel, there must have been angels on high shouting hosanna that such an eccentric building was to be rejuvenated. In Edinburgh's George Street, the conversion of three important former banks into restaurants - The Dome, All Bar One and The Standing Order - began the transformation of what was a financial strip into a more satisfying commercial thoroughfare. As the restaurants arrived, the new shops followed and today George Street is nearer the original plan that it be the principal street of the New Town.

It's a funny thing about Glasgow At A Glance but its method of grouping by period also exposed mercilessly the later architecture of the 1960s. There are plausible defences of the buildings in their individual contexts and functions, but together they make an unanswerable case for high explosives.

The little book also showed that good design and appropriate materials are safer on the whole than genius and inspiration. James Miller's 1913 Bank of Scotland at 110 St Vincent Street is good- looking inside and out, yet it is without show or pretension.

Next time you wander round a city centre looking for a shop or an office, look up at the buildings above and enjoy. Meanwhile, let's have nominations for immediate demolition work.

Copyright 2001
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