Anderston Centre
Encyclopedia
The Anderston Centre is a mixed-use commercial and residential complex, and former bus station
located in the Anderston
area of Glasgow
, Scotland
. Completed in 1972 and designed by Richard Seifert
(best known for London
's famous Centre Point
and NatWest Tower), it is one of the
earliest examples of the "megastructure
" style of urban renewal
scheme fashionable in the 1950s and 1960s - the other notable example in Scotland being the infamous Cumbernauld Town Centre
development. The complex is a notable landmark on the western edge of Glasgow city centre, and is highly visible from the adjacent Kingston Bridge
.
The complex was voted at Position #54 in the Prospect magazine's top 100 Scottish post-modern buildings
. After falling into partial dereliction in the 1990s
, the complex has undergone major redevelopment with some elements demolished and rebuilt, and others
comprehensively refurbished, and renamed as Cadogan Square.
in 1946, Anderston was declared a Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) by Glasgow Corporation, owing to the area having been badly scarred by the city's industrial decline. Much of the housing in the area had become overcrowded, insanitary and had deteriorated into a slum
. The Bruce proposals had called for the construction of a system of inner urban motorway - which would emerge as the Glasgow Inner Ring Road
and the Clydeside Expressway. The new Anderston would have its population and slums cleared, and then trisected by these roads into three zones, a Residential Zone on the western side of the motorway, consisting of high-rise deck access public housing blocks, an Industrial Zone on the westernmost extreme bordering with Stobcross and Finnieston
, and a Commercial Zone on the western side bordering the city centre with Blythswood Hill
. Richard Seifert won the commission for the development of the Commercial Zone, which would combine shops, housing, offices and a bus terminus into one grand megastructure, which would effectively replace Anderston Cross - the original heart of the area which was literally wiped off the map to make way for the ring road.
The core of the complex was based on a multi-level system constructed from pre-cast concrete, connected via sloping walkways and unique open-air escalator
s, housing a semi-enclosed shopping mall
and office space, and a distinctive octagonal shaped leisure complex - which housed a snooker club. These elements were accessed
by a travelator from the bus station at the Argyle Street level. The three 19-storey tower block
s housed office space and shops on their lower five levels, with the upper fourteen floors consisting of public housing for Glasgow Corporation. The undercroft of the structure housed a split level car park, and a system of
internal roads for service purposes along the former Cazdow Street. Two high level pedestrian exits from the complex existed to the north and west - the first being to the (now demolished) Albany Hotel on Waterloo Street, the second being the infamous M8 Bridge to Nowhere
which was never extended far enough to reach the main deck of the shopping plaza, instead terminating in
mid-air some 100 metres away. The three towers were named after the famous Clyde paddle steamers SS St Columba, SS Dalraida and SS Davaar, in reference to Anderston's maritime history as a dockland area, and were collectively known as Blythswood Court.
The eastern end of the complex consisted of an unconnected 'S'-shaped, 9-storey office block (initially known as McIver House, later 1 Cadogan Square), which would frame the northern and eastern operating area of the bus station, exiting onto Douglas Street and Pitt Street. This building shares architectural similarities with the contemporary Elmbank Gardens office block (also designed by Seifert's practice and completed in 1971) built 500 metres to the north in the Charing Cross area opposite the Mitchell Library
, which survives to the present day as a Premier Inn hotel.
') which terminates 100 metres away in mid air. This section of the site was eventually built upon ten years later when a Holiday Inn hotel (now the Glasgow Marriott) was constructed in 1981.
The location of a bus terminal at Anderston had been predicated as part of the Bruce Report proposals which called for the city centre's numerous bus stations to be consolidated down to just two at either corner of the central area - the other station being Buchanan Street Bus Station
- opening a few years later in 1977. The services from Anderston largely served the city's southern suburbs and surrounding towns, and were intended to make use of the southern flank of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road
which was never completed in its intended form. By the end of the 1980s, it had
been decided to consolidate all services at the renamed Buchanan Bus Station, and by September 1993, Anderston was closed completely, dealing the final fatal blow to the shopping area of the complex, which was completely abandoned by the middle of the 1990s following the loss of what was essentially the anchor tenant.
Largely unpoliced, the centre's covered service roads and access walkways became a notorious red-light district, becoming a haven for prostitutes
and vandals, and the development's once-fashionable bare concrete Brutalist style of architecture aged badly over time, with the half derelict shopping plaza standing as a monument to the failures and mistakes of Glasgow's grand regeneration scheme of the 1960s, and generally became viewed as an eyesore.
Contemporary architectural critics of the period blame the location of the complex as a factor in its failure as a shopping destination, critically being "a few hundred yards too far to the west" to encourage shoppers on Argyle Street
beyond the psychological barrier of Central Station and Hielanman's Umbrella.
.
In 2002, plans were put forward to demolishing the Davaar housing tower of the complex with a view to removing the remaining two at a later stage; this decision was later reversed when a development company removed the southern section of the shopping and commercial centre in 2004 and replaced it with the 20-storey Argyle Building private housing development and Cuprum office block.
In 2008, Glasgow Housing Association
transferred ownership of the three Blythswood Court tower blocks to the newly established Glasgow West Housing Association, who begun a plan to refurbish and reclad the blocks,
this process was completed in 2011, the towers now having distinctive blue LED lighting which automatically comes on during hours of darkness, re-establishing them on the central Glasgow skyline.
Bus station
A bus station is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop...
located in the Anderston
Anderston
Anderston is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is on the north bank of the River Clyde and extends to the western edge of the city centre...
area of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Completed in 1972 and designed by Richard Seifert
Richard Seifert
Reubin Seifert - normally known as Richard Seifert was a British architect, best known for designing the Centrepoint tower and Tower 42 , once the tallest building in the City of London...
(best known for London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's famous Centre Point
Centre Point
Centre Point is a substantial concrete and glass office building in central London, England, occupying 101-103 New Oxford Street, WC1, close to St Giles Circus and almost directly above Tottenham Court Road tube station. The site was once occupied by a gallows...
and NatWest Tower), it is one of the
earliest examples of the "megastructure
Megastructures (architecture)
Megastructures are an architectural concept popularized in the 1960s where a city could be encased in a single building, or a relatively small number of buildings interconnected together....
" style of urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
scheme fashionable in the 1950s and 1960s - the other notable example in Scotland being the infamous Cumbernauld Town Centre
Cumbernauld Town Centre
Cumbernauld town centre is the main shopping centre for the New town of Cumbernauld, Scotland. It is widely accepted as the UK's first shopping mall and was the world's first multi-level covered town centre . The centre has now been expanded by the newly completed addition of the Antonine Centre...
development. The complex is a notable landmark on the western edge of Glasgow city centre, and is highly visible from the adjacent Kingston Bridge
Kingston Bridge, Glasgow
The Kingston Bridge is a balanced cantilever dual-span ten lane road bridge made of triple-cell segmented prestressed concrete box girders crossing the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. The largest urban bridge in the United Kingdom, it carries the M8 motorway through the city centre...
.
The complex was voted at Position #54 in the Prospect magazine's top 100 Scottish post-modern buildings
Prospect 100 best modern Scottish buildings
In 2005, the Scottish architecture magazine Prospect published a list of the 100 best modern Scottish buildings, as voted for by its readers.-The list:...
. After falling into partial dereliction in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
, the complex has undergone major redevelopment with some elements demolished and rebuilt, and others
comprehensively refurbished, and renamed as Cadogan Square.
History and Construction
Following the Bruce ReportBruce Report
The Bruce Report is the name commonly given to two urban redevelopment reports of the Glasgow Corporation ....
in 1946, Anderston was declared a Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) by Glasgow Corporation, owing to the area having been badly scarred by the city's industrial decline. Much of the housing in the area had become overcrowded, insanitary and had deteriorated into a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
. The Bruce proposals had called for the construction of a system of inner urban motorway - which would emerge as the Glasgow Inner Ring Road
Glasgow Inner Ring Road
The Glasgow Inner Ring Road was a proposed ring road encircling the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Construction of the roads began in 1965, and half of its circumference was completed by 1972, but no subsequent construction was made and the remaining plans were formally abandoned in 1980...
and the Clydeside Expressway. The new Anderston would have its population and slums cleared, and then trisected by these roads into three zones, a Residential Zone on the western side of the motorway, consisting of high-rise deck access public housing blocks, an Industrial Zone on the westernmost extreme bordering with Stobcross and Finnieston
Finnieston
Finnieston is an area of Glasgow, Scotland, situated on the North bank of the River Clyde and between the city's West End and the city centre. It is home to the SECC, where many musical concerts and important conferences are held...
, and a Commercial Zone on the western side bordering the city centre with Blythswood Hill
Blythswood Hill
Blythswood Hill is an area of Glasgow, Scotland.It lies to the immediate west of the city centre and as the name suggests rises to a plateau before dipping again towards the west end area of Woodlands....
. Richard Seifert won the commission for the development of the Commercial Zone, which would combine shops, housing, offices and a bus terminus into one grand megastructure, which would effectively replace Anderston Cross - the original heart of the area which was literally wiped off the map to make way for the ring road.
The core of the complex was based on a multi-level system constructed from pre-cast concrete, connected via sloping walkways and unique open-air escalator
Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...
s, housing a semi-enclosed shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
and office space, and a distinctive octagonal shaped leisure complex - which housed a snooker club. These elements were accessed
by a travelator from the bus station at the Argyle Street level. The three 19-storey tower block
Tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, office tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building...
s housed office space and shops on their lower five levels, with the upper fourteen floors consisting of public housing for Glasgow Corporation. The undercroft of the structure housed a split level car park, and a system of
internal roads for service purposes along the former Cazdow Street. Two high level pedestrian exits from the complex existed to the north and west - the first being to the (now demolished) Albany Hotel on Waterloo Street, the second being the infamous M8 Bridge to Nowhere
M8 Bridge to Nowhere
The Bridges to Nowhere is a colloquial nickname given to two unfinished structures 600 metres apart over the M8 motorway in Glasgow. Both attracted a degree of notoriety as examples of the incompleteness of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road...
which was never extended far enough to reach the main deck of the shopping plaza, instead terminating in
mid-air some 100 metres away. The three towers were named after the famous Clyde paddle steamers SS St Columba, SS Dalraida and SS Davaar, in reference to Anderston's maritime history as a dockland area, and were collectively known as Blythswood Court.
The eastern end of the complex consisted of an unconnected 'S'-shaped, 9-storey office block (initially known as McIver House, later 1 Cadogan Square), which would frame the northern and eastern operating area of the bus station, exiting onto Douglas Street and Pitt Street. This building shares architectural similarities with the contemporary Elmbank Gardens office block (also designed by Seifert's practice and completed in 1971) built 500 metres to the north in the Charing Cross area opposite the Mitchell Library
Mitchell Library
The Mitchell Library is a large public library and centre of the public library system of Glasgow, Scotland.-History:The library was established with a bequest from Stephen Mitchell, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer, whose company, Stephen Mitchell & Son, would become one of the constituent members...
, which survives to the present day as a Premier Inn hotel.
Decline and Demise
Seifert's scheme was never implemented in its entirety - conceptual drawings of the complex dating from the mid 1960s show a second phase immediately to the west of the first, which had an extended shopping plaza and three additional housing towers. This second phase was never built - the visible evidence of its incompleteness being the unfinished Anderston pedestrian bridge (the infamous 'Bridge to NowhereM8 Bridge to Nowhere
The Bridges to Nowhere is a colloquial nickname given to two unfinished structures 600 metres apart over the M8 motorway in Glasgow. Both attracted a degree of notoriety as examples of the incompleteness of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road...
') which terminates 100 metres away in mid air. This section of the site was eventually built upon ten years later when a Holiday Inn hotel (now the Glasgow Marriott) was constructed in 1981.
The location of a bus terminal at Anderston had been predicated as part of the Bruce Report proposals which called for the city centre's numerous bus stations to be consolidated down to just two at either corner of the central area - the other station being Buchanan Street Bus Station
Buchanan bus station
Buchanan Bus Station is the main bus terminus in Glasgow, Scotland.The bus station is the terminus for journeys between the city and other towns in United Kingdom and international journeys. It was originally built in 1977, close to the former site of Buchanan Street railway station which was...
- opening a few years later in 1977. The services from Anderston largely served the city's southern suburbs and surrounding towns, and were intended to make use of the southern flank of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road
Glasgow Inner Ring Road
The Glasgow Inner Ring Road was a proposed ring road encircling the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Construction of the roads began in 1965, and half of its circumference was completed by 1972, but no subsequent construction was made and the remaining plans were formally abandoned in 1980...
which was never completed in its intended form. By the end of the 1980s, it had
been decided to consolidate all services at the renamed Buchanan Bus Station, and by September 1993, Anderston was closed completely, dealing the final fatal blow to the shopping area of the complex, which was completely abandoned by the middle of the 1990s following the loss of what was essentially the anchor tenant.
Largely unpoliced, the centre's covered service roads and access walkways became a notorious red-light district, becoming a haven for prostitutes
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and vandals, and the development's once-fashionable bare concrete Brutalist style of architecture aged badly over time, with the half derelict shopping plaza standing as a monument to the failures and mistakes of Glasgow's grand regeneration scheme of the 1960s, and generally became viewed as an eyesore.
Contemporary architectural critics of the period blame the location of the complex as a factor in its failure as a shopping destination, critically being "a few hundred yards too far to the west" to encourage shoppers on Argyle Street
Argyle Street
Argyle Street is the name of a street in many cities and towns. Notable among these are:Australia*Argyle Street, the Rocks, Sydney*Argyle Street, Hobart, Tasmania*Argyle Street, Fitzroy, MelbourneCanada*Argyll Road, Edmonton...
beyond the psychological barrier of Central Station and Hielanman's Umbrella.
Regeneration
By the mid 1990s, efforts began to regenerate the complex. Controlled access to the centre's car park and service undercroft was brought into deal with the notorious prostitution problem. The former bus station was built over by the Europa House office building in 1999, and a further office block replaced the northern half of the shopping complex in the early 2000s - this block being occupied by SentinelSentinel
-Guards:* Border guard, a state agent who controls the security at borders* Honor guard, a ceremonial escort-Places:* Sentinel, California* Sentinel, Oklahoma* Sentinel Island * Sentinel Islands, a pair of islands in the Andaman Islands...
.
In 2002, plans were put forward to demolishing the Davaar housing tower of the complex with a view to removing the remaining two at a later stage; this decision was later reversed when a development company removed the southern section of the shopping and commercial centre in 2004 and replaced it with the 20-storey Argyle Building private housing development and Cuprum office block.
In 2008, Glasgow Housing Association
Glasgow Housing Association
Glasgow Housing Association is one of the largest social landlords in the UK, with more than 50,000 tenants and 26,500 factored homeowners across Glasgow....
transferred ownership of the three Blythswood Court tower blocks to the newly established Glasgow West Housing Association, who begun a plan to refurbish and reclad the blocks,
this process was completed in 2011, the towers now having distinctive blue LED lighting which automatically comes on during hours of darkness, re-establishing them on the central Glasgow skyline.