Neil Baxter, Secretary & Treasurer of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and former Principal of Neil Baxter Associates, considers how high-quality architecture is contributing to the success of Clyde Waterfront.
The regeneration of the River Clyde corridor is regularly quoted
as a great economic success story for central Scotland. However a
major contributor to that success has been an enlightened attitude
to architectural commissioning which has sought buildings, not
merely fit-for-purpose, but of real international quality. It
started in Glasgow's International Financial Services District
where major office buildings by Building Design Partnership, Keppie
Architects and others among the most respected of Scotland's
contemporary architects, generated a waterfront of impressive scale
which encouraged numerous international companies to settle.
Further downriver, high rise developments by gm + ad architects
among others, new media and high-tech office developments, the Science Centre and
particularly the BBC's big glass box on
the southern riverbank has generated a bold new township. The scale
and elegant arching form of the new surface bridge, the Clyde Arc,
lends integrity to this dramatic new urban landscape. By night the
subtly changing lighting of the bridge and the bold splashes of
colour from the brilliantly simple lighting scheme at David
Chipperfield Architect's BBC are literal highlights amid this
sparkling, high-rise finance and media focussed, latest reinvention
of Glasgow.
In the near future, downriver Clyde will once again welcome a new
flurry of media and visitor attention as Foster & Partners' new
SECC
Arena and Zaha Hadid's Glasgow Transport Museum open
in relatively quick succession. The museum, due to welcome its
first visitors in 2011, is an extraordinary, contemporary
reinvention of Gothic onto the river, sinuously and seamlessly
connected to the bulk of the museum hall behind. The whole
composition is clad in a sparkling metallic skin. Whether the
viewer is shocked or delighted by this extraordinary composition
there is no question that they will notice - always a prerequisite
with museum architecture! Much more restrained, but similarly
impressive in scale and impact, Foster's arena, a deceptively
simple metallic "doughnut" will seat 12,000 and ensure the SECC's
future as one of the most important entertainment and conference
venues in Europe.
Glasgow
Harbour's towering residential blocks have reinstated the scale
of Partick's riverfront with some of Glasgow's most innovative new
homes, set within a linear parkland. Further downriver, much work
is being done to create a more attractive riverside environment
with new residential development, landscaping, tree planting and
vital engineering works to quay walls. However at Clydebank, largely through the
endeavours of the local regeneration agency, Clydebank Re-built, a
number of further, nationally important, new buildings are helping
regenerate the local economy and bring new life onto the
river.
The 1907 Titan Crane, one of only four of
its type left from the heyday of Clyde shipbuilding, has been
superbly restored by Collective Architecture as a viewing platform,
providing a unique perspective up and down the river and of course,
onto Clydebank itself. Sitting just below this impressive
engineering monument to Clydebank's past, the new college by Jenkins and Marr
Architects sits close to Aurora House, a matt grey office
building of supreme elegance by Reiach & Hall Architects. The
third component in this group of major developments is Page\Park
Architects' Titan Enterprise
Building, whose dramatic end elevation is raised on slender
stilts. Together they create an exciting new architectural
landscape at the edge of a riverside town, which, like much of the
length of the Clyde itself is being reinvented, with new buildings
of which the whole of Scotland has the right to be proud.
(See the image gallery
which accompanies this article)
Neil Baxter
Secretary & Treasurer
Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland
19 August 2010
