Day 13, Monday Scotland 2024

Today is a musical night off for us, so that means more thoughts and photos from our rambles through Centre City.

We mentioned earlier how Glasgow is a “walkable city” (the term used by planners). This makes a big difference in how one experiences the city. There is comparatively (to other cities) little vehicular traffic in the Centre City area. It’s easy to walk around (jaywalk) and much quieter and cleaner. There are so many people out and about, you have to pay attention to avoid pedestrian collisions. As a carryover from the original concept for the city, there is a mixture of roads and lanes (for example, Bath Street runs parallel to Bath Lane, same for Sauciehall Street and Lane, etc.)

There’s a deliberate arrangement of regular roads (with sidewalks and sometimes a marked bike path), closed roads (for people-only and sometimes a marked bike path), and then there’s the interspersed lanes (services alleys for deliveries and rubbish collection). Unfortunately, they have perpetuated the problem of driving on the wrong (left) side of the road by forcing cyclists to also ride on the left side of the bike path.

Many streets have been repurposed as pedestrian- and cyclist- only thoroughfares. Compared to US cities, there isn’t any blocks-long traffic gridlock and only the occasional honk to be heard (usually targeting a sluggish pedestrian). There’s significant turnover (openings and closures) of shops and restaurants, but the crowds seem steady and strong enough to sustain many established places and continually encourage new ones. Amazon delivery trucks are a rare sight here and the other delivery services must be using smaller vehicles that are not as apparent. All the residential meal deliveries in this part of the city were by cyclists.

 

 

         

We’ll leave the professional architecture critiques to the professionals, but the stark contrast in building designs and construction methods leaves plenty of room for the opinions of passers-by like ourselves.  We figure there are lots of constraints at play unfamiliar to us. The economics of large-scale construction, the changing market demands of what people will pay for, evolving availability of building materials and the labor pool of a variety of craft persons, city ordinances, safety codes, and more. Hopefully not completely lost in the mix, there’s still some sense of historically-aware and community-connected architecture.

The older buildings benefited from grand visions of what a city building could look like, backed up with an abundance of stone and marble and the skilled craft persons to work them.  Companies were proud to build their eponymous structures with no apparent concern about the project’s break-even point.  These monuments to the company were built to last for generations although, in most cases, they have outlived their original corporate patron.  Government buildings were also monumental.  Despite over-running their original budgets, it seems there was some pride among many of the citizenry in having such notable landmarks for their city. The government buildings continue to hold their ground, in grand but perhaps inefficient fashion.

Of course, there’s another story line that needs to go here about colonialism and the slave trade that Glasgow benefited from, directly and indirectly. More on that later.

The newer buildings appear to be constructed as calculated investments. Each design decision seemingly based on pounds and pence. Many from the recent past fall into the “brutalist” school of architecture.  Fans of this style might consider them actual brutalist gems, while local naysayers have written about how they would be happy to see them replaced.  The current new construction is not distinguished in any way, except perhaps for economy of steel and glass, certainly not in their flat, boxy designs.

We did get a little music in tonight at  Danny Kyle’s Open Stage (DKOS) free show. Again there were some very good performers, I particularly liked Arthur Coates & Kerman Cotterell’s version of Joni Mitchell’s, Fiddle and the Drum. All of the DKOS shows and other interviews can be heard at the Celtic Music Radio website. 

Tomorrow night we’re back at the main concert hall for Carlos Nunez with special guests Celtic Sea and Hannah Rarity.