by gap74 » Fri May 11, 2007 10:57 am
I've not really got a problem with the idea of a modern building replacing the auditorium block, but I really do think that this has a problem with scale. The whole idea of demolishing the auditorium block is to remove the featureless mass of brickwork - to then replace that with a mass of largely blank glass seems somewhat pointless, even though they've tried to make the lower floors transparent.
I'm also not terribly convinced that it interacts very well with the retained facade - look at the former Ascot cinema in Anniesland to see how clumsy allowing an oversized rebuild behind a retained facade can look. I'd much rather see the building step up gradually from that than loom large over it as the artists impressions show.
I'm not saying this is an easy site to redevelop, but to unveil a set of plans that go on about how much of an eyesore the current building is seems a bit of a cheek - it's only an eyesore cos the developers have allowed it to become so! This is rapidly becoming a well-worn excuse with many derelict buildings that I'm not happy with!
Finally, I see the architects state that it is "the least attractive building in the city centre" in the link posted above with the pics - er, well I presume they are referring to the auditorium block only, but even so, I can think of many, many other buildings that deserve that moniker before this one - and a good deal of them were built fairly recently by contemporaries of the architects!
PS - am I the only one who kinda likes the relentless, monolithic brickwork of the auditorium, especially the West Nile St facade of the former fly tower? If it looked a bit less shabby than it does now, it really wouldn't be all that bad!