Mackintosh and Walking Tours

Welcome to the new series of downloadable walking tours developed by the Mackintosh Heritage Group. These will introduce you to Mackintosh’s architectural heritage and the wider architectural riches of Glasgow, a city described by John Betjeman as the finest Victorian city in the world.

Glasgow Style and Modernity Second City The West End

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From Central Station to City Chambers and then to the Necropolis. 16 This walk takes approximately 1¾ hours. This walk will examine some of the best examples of Victorian and Edwardian commercial architecture in the city. Glasgow flourished, prospered and expanded in the 19th century, by the end of which it was often referred to as the “Second City” of the British Empire. Glasgow’s wealth and ambition was expressed in the magnificence of its City Chambers but also in its commercial buildings, many of which were opulent Classical designs inspired by Italian Renaissance models. Glasgow also encouraged the talent of one highly original designer, Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, who applied his radical interpretation of Greek precedents to new building types like the commercial warehouse and was arguably ’s greatest Victorian architect. Victorian Glasgow was further remarkable for the number of commercial buildings partly or wholly 3 constructed of cast-iron, the most interesting of which date from the 1850s. The great American historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock described them as “among the most successful Victorian commercial edifices to be found on either side of the Atlantic”. Opening hours are provided for those buildings that are open to the public. These were correct at the time of writing, but you are recommended to check current times to avoid disappointment. Occasionally unforeseen building works may restrict viewing.

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 2. WOO

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The walk begins atCentral Station , Mackintosh’s future employer, John allowing them to stand free. Despite the 1 whose spacious top-lit concourse is Honeyman. Not only the tracery of the name, this building was Greek rather than today perhaps the real centre of the city. large windows of this Italianate palazzo Egyptian in inspiration and the changes in was made of cast-iron but most of its two the architectural treatment on each level Out of the front entrance, signed facades above the stone arcades as well as as it rises may represent the working out 2 Gordon Street, and into Gordon the original interior. The building illustrates of an ideal of architectural development Street where, directly opposite, stands the the influence of John Ruskin’s book, The and perfection in Thomson’s highly original extraordinary façade of the Grosvenor Stones of Venice, on the mid-Victorians, mind. Building introducing the unique style of although the exotic name of the building Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson. This was only came with an eponymous restaurant Continue down Union Street to the originally a four-storey block of commercial in the 1920s. 5 junction with Argyle Street where, to premises built in 1858–59 by Alexander & the right, just before the bridge carrying George Thomson, who rebuilt it after a Turn right down Union Street. Central Station, is a cast-iron façade of disastrous fire in 1864. In 1907 it suffered 4 On the left hand side is the towering, 1863 designed by James Thomson in the indignity of a Classical superstructure fantastic façade of Egyptian Halls, ‘Greek’ conjunction with the iron-founder Robert being plonked on top and today, after Thomson’s grandest commercial building, McConnel. But we continue straight ahead, further mutilation and fires, only the currently undergoing restoration. Opened down to 36 Jamaica Street, to see – on the façade survives. But it is still a remarkable in 1872 as a sort of bazaar or shopping right – the best of Glasgow’s few surviving design in which the interlacing of square centre with an exhibition gallery, the cast-iron buildings and one of the most piers, window frames, console brackets interior was largely constructed of iron. remarkable anywhere in Britain. Gardner & and Thomson’s personal style of ornament But it is the exterior which is so Son’s Warehouse, now a pub, was dissolve the wall plane and permit a large remarkable: a sort of exotic layer-cake with constructed in 1855–56, that is, just a few extent of glazing. each floor having a different, and highly years after Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace original, treatment of windows and in Hyde Park in demonstrated the A little further east, on the corner stonework. On the top floor, just below the possibilities of using pre-fabricated 3 of Union Street is the Ca’ D’oro, majestic cornice, the glazing runs behind cast-iron sections filled with plate glass. originally a furniture warehouse of 1872, by and independently of the squat columns, This warehouse, for a cabinet-maker and

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 3. upholsterer, was made entirely of iron, centre for Architecture, Design and the façade of what was once the premises of inside and out, using a structural system City. Built in 1893–95 and designed by the the . Designed by patented by the Glasgow ironfounder, firm of Honeyman & Keppie, this tall red Charles Wilson, this is, in fact, an extension Robert McConnel. The architect was John sandstone building has strange details, of 1851 to the Royal Bank’s original building Baird, who was responsible for the naturalistic and yet symbolic, which which faces Exchange Place behind. This is Classical detail and the effective proclaim it to be an early work by the firm’s reached through one of the elegant organisation of the subtly varied arched new young assistant, Charles Rennie flanking arches across the passages on windows. Mackintosh. either side. Best to go along the right-hand passage, Exchange Place, for this means Return to Argyle Street and turn right. You passing the front of Rogano’s will pass St Enoch Square on your right. Oyster Bar (its handsome Art Deco The square once contained a church and interiors are worth a look) . was long dominated by a large railway station and hotel. Today it is a dismal space, but enlivened by the presence of the original station building for the Glasgow District Subway (now a café): a miniature Scottish Baronial red sandstone mansion by James Miller of 1896. There are also some good surviving commercial facades on the west side of the square.

To the north stretches the long 6 length of , but it is more interesting to reach this via the In Royal Exchange Square behind, these Argyle Arcade, open Mon – Sat 10.00 Slightly further on at 91 Buchanan 9 two arches can be seen to be an integral – 5.30; Sun 12.00 – 5.00. To reach the Street, the picturesque red and white part of the composition of the original arcade, continue along Argyle Street, cross stone gabled building in a North European Royal Bank building, linking it with the at the pedestrian crossing. Facing you, you Renaissance manner was designed by handsome and regular stone terraces will see Cranston House, the site of Miss George Washington Browne. This originally of commercial premises that frame Cranston’s Argyle Street Tea Rooms, housed Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street the square. The Royal Bank itself is a designed by Hugh and David Barclay and Tearooms, which opened in 1897, but the most elegant Greek Revival building of furnished by Mackintosh. Turn right and remarkable interiors by Mackintosh and 1827 by another architect, then left into the Argyle Arcade, Glasgow’s George Walton have, alas, long gone. Archibald Elliot junior, but rather suffers answer to the fashionable arcades of from being hidden away in a confined with its shops roofed over with timber, iron The next junction with Gordon 10 space – “like a candle put under a bushel”, and glass in 1828 by John Baird. After a Street was once the commercial as a contemporary guide-book put it. sharp turn to the west, the Argyle Arcade heart of Buchanan Street, dominated by Even so, this part of Glasgow is the most emerges into Buchanan Street. Outwith banks. On the north-west corner, the richly considered piece of town planning in the the arcade’s opening hours, continue modelled Renaissance building was built city. straight into Buchanan Street, Glasgow’s as the head office of theCommercial Bank smartest shopping street ever since the Of Scotland, now a bar and restaurant. The The Ionic portico of the bank is early decades of the 19th century. original block, of 1853–57, is in Gordon 12 hemmed in by the great Reading Street and was designed by the Edinburgh Room of the former Royal Exchange which On the west side, facing the exit architect David Rhind. In 1886–88 this 7 almost entirely fills Royal Exchange from the Argyle Arcade, was Wylie & was extended around the corner into Square. Walk down the side to the Lochead’s red sandstone department Buchanan Street by A. Sydney Mitchell, Corinthian portico fronting onto Queen store, now part of Fraser’s, of which the who continued the Italianate manner and Street and you will see that this is a major part is of 1883–85 by James Sellars discipline but added a grand domed tower. building of two distinct halves reflecting with, inside, an impressive galleried hall It is instructive to compare the Classical its curious history. This ambitious building, rising the full height of the building. correctness of the mid-Victorian building intended as a public meeting place for with the greater freedom and invention of business transactions and now Glasgow’s Further up to the north on the the later extension. 8 Gallery Of Modern Art, is a product of a same side, is Mitchell Lane, down rare case of sentimental conservatism in which is the former Glasgow Herald On the opposite side of Buchanan 11 Glasgow. For the site was originally Building, now The Lighthouse: Scotland’s Street is the more sober Italianate occupied by the handsome mansion built

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 4. by William Cunninghame of Lainshaw in Left along Argyle Street (notice the 1778–80. This was so admired that, when distinctive steeple and clock-tower of the Glasgow continued its relentless 17th-century Tron Church in the distance) expansion westwards from the ancient then left into Virginia Street – the name High Street, it was retained rather than of which emphasises the importance demolished. But it was remodelled in of the tobacco trade to Glasgow before 1827–32 for a new use as the city’s Royal the American War of Independence and Exchange. This work was done by David where there was, until very recently, a Hamilton, Glasgow’s leading architect in former Tobacco Exchange. Some Georgian the early 1800s and who was sometimes buildings, with sober stone facades, described as the “Father of the Profession” survive further up on the left hand side. in the West of Scotland. Hamilton added only surviving example of the several the portico and the church-like tower or grand mansions built in this part of the tempietto which rises above the former city by the tobacco lairds, the wealthy Cunninghame Mansion, and the Reading merchants who traded with America and Room behind. It is worth going inside the who were responsible for Glasgow’s Gallery to see the Reading Room’s large prosperity in the century after the Act of and most elegant interior with its coffered Union in 1707. The house, with its simple, ceiling supported on impressive Corinthian elegant stone Palladian façade, was built in columns. 1775 by John Craig for Samuel Abramson. It was restored in 1995 and is now the In front of the portico, facing east down home of two building preservation trusts. Ingram Street, is an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington by Queen Victoria’s Down to Argyle Street. Almost favourite sculptor, Baron Marochetti, 1844. 15 opposite, on the corner of Dunlop Street, is the Buck’s Head Building, a block Cross over to Ingram Street where, 13 of commercial premises begun in 1863 on immediately on the north side, once the site of the 18th-century Buck’s Head stood Glasgow’s elegant Assembly Rooms Hotel. This is another work by Alexander Continue to the far end to the by the celebrated brothers, Robert & ‘Greek’ Thomson, but here he adopted a 16 domed banking hall of 1853 designed James Adam, a fragment of which was slightly simpler treatment of the exterior by the elder James Salmon as part of the later erected on as a sort of by using a sort of grid of verticals and former Union Bank. Continue along the triumphal arch. Right into Miller Street, horizontals deriving from ancient Greek passage to the left to Ingram Street. Here where the building on the corner (now models. Thomson believed that arches you will see the other, infinitely grander Agent Provocateur and other shops) were intrinsically unstable – “Stonehenge” frontage of the bank, rebuilt in 1876–79 as dating from about 1875, is of poignant and he once wrote, “is really more scientifically a magnificent Italian palazzo. Above a melancholy interest, for although the constructed than York Minster.” – and so ground floor with rusticated stonework exterior is not remarkable the interior adopted a system of “trabeation” with and an elaborate central entrance rise two certainly once was. For here were the vertical square piers supporting horizontal floors articulated by free-standing Ingram Street Tearooms, the first of Miss beams or lintels. This abstracted treatment Corinthian columns of granite, all below a Cranston’s famous refreshment rooms. might seem to place Thomson on the line rich cornice surmounted by a balustrade. Opened in 1886, the premises were later from the rationalism of the great Prussian Richly modelled window surrounds enlarged to contain a series of remarkable designer K.F. Schinkel to the 20th-century alternate and the columns are not evenly interior spaces by C.R. Mackintosh. In 1971, modernism of Mies van der Rohe, except spaced, while the whole composition is after a campaign to reopen them failed, that Thomson never forgot the importance enriched by sculptured figures by John these famous, unique interiors, which had of ornament. Inventive Greek decoration is Mossman. This ambitious composition was been bought by Glasgow Corporation, were incised into the stonework while, on the designed by the elder John Burnet but the dismantled and are currently in store. curved corner, thin free-standing iron refinement and richness of the detail is Elements of the interiors are on display at columns with extravagant capitals support probably indebted to the intervention of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. a miniature balcony. The sculpture on the his more famous son, John James Burnet, parapet was by the prolific Glasgow firm of who had returned to Glasgow having made Miller Street is now largely lined with sculptors, J. & G. Mossman. Inside, the 14 a tour of France and Italy after studying at Victorian warehouses, but there is Buck’s Head building was constructed of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. The also one precious relic from the previous iron and Thomson employed McConnel’s handsome and ornate interiors of this century. On the left at no.42, now known patent beams, a composite of wrought and former bank are now accessible and well as the Tobacco Merchant’s House, is the cast iron.

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 5. worth a visit as, having served as a court Cross Ingram Street and up South successor as Glasgow’s progressive house for some years, it was re-opened in 18 Frederick Street to reach George Classicist, J.J. Burnet, had not yet got into 1999 as The Corinthian, a complex of bars Square, originally laid out in the 1780s and his stride. But the result, if conservative, is and restaurants. long the civic heart of the city. This is magnificent enough as an expression of comparable to London’s Trafalgar Square, the city’s wealth and ambition. And the complete with a giant column and statues influence of Thomson is there in the tall of national worthies. Cross over to the central domed tower. Domes also centre of the square. The Doric column in punctuate the corners of the principal the centre is the Scott Monument of 1837 elevation, with its richly modelled – the first to be raised to Sir treatment of Italian Renaissance motifs all – designed by David Rhind (interesting in pale stone. But this is a building which that Glasgow’s tribute to the novelist was must be entered to appreciate its full Classical while Edinburgh’s later glory. Access to the grand entrance hall is monument is Gothic). Amongst the available during normal working hours. several fine statues, the equestrian Guided tours are available twice daily on bronzes of Queen Victoria and Prince weekdays. The principal rooms – a Albert by Marochetti stand out. These are mahogany Council Chamber and a vast on the west side of the square. To the east Banqueting Hall with a barrel vaulted is Glasgow’s Cenotaph, a necessarily ceiling and walls decorated with fin de severe pylon by Sir John James Burnet siècle murals by some of the painters with flanking lions by Ernest Gillick. known as the “Glasgow Boys” – are reached Architecturally, the interest of the square by not one but two grand staircases. is to both east and west. Rising through two stories, these are of unparalleled magnificence, with their The west side of the square is arcades and balustrades made of a rich 19 another tribute to the importance of variety of coloured marbles, alabaster and commerce in the language of the Italian black stone. No wonder that when film Renaissance, uniform in style if not in companies need to recreate the splendour Immediately next door, to the east, height. From left to right, two former of the Vatican or Versailles they hire 17 in Ingram Street is another banks of the 1870s – by J.T. Rochead and Glasgow City Chambers. commercial building by the Burnets, father Campbell Douglas & Sellars – then, with its and son, the former Glasgow Savings corner tower and dome, the Merchants’ Bank, but here the sophisticated work of House by John Burnet, again heightened the Francophile son predominates. The and improved by his son thirty years on. original building, set back from the street, was an Italianate building of 1866 by the elder John Burnet to which his son added a more interesting top storey some thirty years later. Shortly before, in 1894–96, John James Burnet had built the single-storey banking hall in front, between Virginia Place and Glassford Street. Although small in scale, this is a This walk could well end here in Glasgow’s rich and powerful composition inspired by civic centre, . But fully to the Roman Baroque. The handling of the appreciate the ambition and prestige of rusticated stone corners, with their the Glasgow merchant princes who made recessions and tapering curves, is the architecture of Victorian Glasgow so masterly and the windows, with their But what dominates the square is 20 splendid it is necessary to see where they broken pediments, and the grand main the great public building that finally ended up – in Glasgow’s Necropolis, entrance are enhanced by carving by occupies the whole of the east side: one of the very finest and most impressive George Frampton, a talented Glasgow’s City Chambers. Designed by 19th-century cemeteries in Britain. representative of the so-called “New William Young, this is the result of a Sculpture” which flourished at the end of competition held in 1882 and the building So we leave George Square by the south- the 19th century. Inside there is a splendid was completed in 1890. Perhaps it is a pity east corner, along Cochrane Street, past banking hall, now a shop, surmounted by a the competition was held when it was, for the City Chambers on the left. Turn right partially glazed Baroque dome. ‘Greek’ Thomson was dead and his into John Street. On the right are early

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 6. Victorian warehouses made into the Italian Centre by Glasgow architects Page & Park in 1987–89.

Then left along Ingram Street, past, 21 on the right, the Corinthian portico at the end of the long Greek Revival building which was the County Buildings & Courthouses, begun in 1841.

Then, on the left, a rare Gothic accent mention the clergymen, who created 22 in the shape of the Ramshorn Kirk of Victorian Glasgow but they are far too 1824–26 designed by Thomas Rickman, many to list here. At the very top is a the Quaker antiquary who coined the curiously squat and ill-proportioned Greek terms we still use for classifying Mediaeval Doric column carrying a statue of the architecture: “Norman”, “Early English”, Presbyterian reformer John Knox. And “Decorated” and “Perpendicular”. from here can be enjoyed a magnificent view, looking over the ancient black On to the ancient but now rather Cathedral and what was once the Second 23 desolate High Street, where the Old City of the Empire stretching out towards College of Glasgow University once stood. the distant beyond. Then north up the High Street, between blocks of red sandstone tenements built by the City Improvement Trust in 1899–1902 and designed by Burnet, Boston & Carruthers, then past, on the left, the former Barony Church, now the Hall Of University, an austere, noble Gothic Revival work by J.J. Burnet & J.A. Campbell of 1886–89, to reach Cathedral Square in front of . We would welcome your feedback on It is too often forgotten, or ignored, your experience of these new tours. 24 that one of the city’s principal architectural glories is its ancient Electronic feedback forms are accessible Cathedral which is not only Mediaeval but on the Walking Tours section of an austerely magnificent Gothic building. www.crmsociety.com. The Mackintosh Heritage Group is grateful to the But that must wait, as our immediate following for providing access to their © images, cited by building numbers where relevant. 25 objective is the Necropolis on the hill behind, reached by a path to the right of Front Page: the Cathedral which crosses the now Portrait of Mackintosh © T. & R. Annan & Sons Ltd buried Molendinar Burn. Glasgow’s City of www.annanphotographs.co.uk the Dead was opened in 1831, the third The “hygienic” or “planned garden cemetery” in courtesy The Glasgow School of Art Britain, inspired by the Père Lachaise Glasgow City Chambers and Great Western Terrace cemetery in Paris. Between the winding courtesy DRS Graphics, paths can be found magnificent mausolea The Tour: and monuments, many designed by Neale Smith 3 Glasgow’s best architects and carved by DRS Graphics, Glasgow City Council 8, 11, the best sculptors. Architecturally 16 (general view), 20, 25 impressive, they say much about the Gavin Stamp 16 (detail) character, prestige and ambition of the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust 14 merchants and industrialists, not to Glasgow City Heritage Trust 12, 16

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group 7. Glossary

Bay: repetitive façade unit; projecting unit For further information see James Stevens of façade Curl, ‘A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’, Oxford: Oxford Canted: the edge of a corner of wood, stone University Press, 2006 etc. that is bevelled or angled off, usually at 45 degrees Cantilever: a horizontal projection such as a balcony or beam, supported at one end only Console: projecting ornament or bracket Corbel: block of stone projecting from a wall, providing support for a feature Cornice: horizontal moulded or otherwise decorated projection which crowns the part to which it is affixed e.g. door, wall, window Dormer window: window projecting from roof Gable: vertical triangular portion of the end of a building with a pitched roof, from the level of the cornice or eaves to the ridge of the roof Ionic: a Greek order of architecture distinguished by a plan concave moulding of the shaft and a capital with spiral volutes Moulding: a plain or curved narrow surface, either sunk or projecting, used for decoration to frame features such as windows or doors Mullion: vertical member dividing a window Order: classical arrangement of column and structurally related elements Oriel: bay window that projects without direct support from below Pediment: a triangular feature over a door or window Pier: vertical solid support, generally rectangular in shape

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Tours © The Mackintosh Heritage Group X.