Edit Gorbals regeneration - hit or miss?
The 50s saw Glasgow launch the biggest comprehensive development scheme ever seen in the UK.
Among the areas chosen for full-scale redevelopment was Hutchestown and Gorbals.
This £13million project, approved in 1957, was determined to demolish 7600 local houses and replace them with 3500 modern properties - half of them in multi-storeys of between 10 and 15 blocks.
Architect Basil Spence designed the 22-storey Queen Elizabeth flats, which came to tower over the Gorbals landscape. (They lasted until 1993.)
Other areas, like Springburn and Townhead, were also bulldozed, while thousands of new homes took shape at Darnley and Summerston.
Back in 1947, city councillors had visited Marseille to inspect new tower-blocks devised by the celebrated French architect, Le Corbusier. High-rise blocks now sprang up all across Glasgow, at such a rate that, by 1979, it had more than 300 multi-storeys.
The Red Road flats at Balornock were, at 31 storeys, the highest in Europe. The first residents were welcomed in 1969, and the blocks were completed in the summer of 1971.
The old Glasgow was fast disappearing, but not just in housing. Millions of pounds were poured into building an ambitious network of new motorways and other key roads.
But many Glasgow residents were upset when these building works pushed through their areas. Protesters ranging from a Gorbals group called Glasgow Resistance to Incoming Motorways to middle-class residents of Great Western Road were not slow to voice their anger.
Few schemes caused as much controversy as the Charing Cross section of the inner ring road, which linked the Kingston Bridge to the St George's Cross interchange.
Among the areas chosen for full-scale redevelopment was Hutchestown and Gorbals.
This £13million project, approved in 1957, was determined to demolish 7600 local houses and replace them with 3500 modern properties - half of them in multi-storeys of between 10 and 15 blocks.
Architect Basil Spence designed the 22-storey Queen Elizabeth flats, which came to tower over the Gorbals landscape. (They lasted until 1993.)
Other areas, like Springburn and Townhead, were also bulldozed, while thousands of new homes took shape at Darnley and Summerston.
Back in 1947, city councillors had visited Marseille to inspect new tower-blocks devised by the celebrated French architect, Le Corbusier. High-rise blocks now sprang up all across Glasgow, at such a rate that, by 1979, it had more than 300 multi-storeys.
The Red Road flats at Balornock were, at 31 storeys, the highest in Europe. The first residents were welcomed in 1969, and the blocks were completed in the summer of 1971.
The old Glasgow was fast disappearing, but not just in housing. Millions of pounds were poured into building an ambitious network of new motorways and other key roads.
But many Glasgow residents were upset when these building works pushed through their areas. Protesters ranging from a Gorbals group called Glasgow Resistance to Incoming Motorways to middle-class residents of Great Western Road were not slow to voice their anger.
Few schemes caused as much controversy as the Charing Cross section of the inner ring road, which linked the Kingston Bridge to the St George's Cross interchange.
Be the first person to comment on this entry.
