A corner of Glasgow’s historic Central Station was destroyed by fire last Sunday in scenes that resembled the 1970s disaster film Towering Inferno. The fire apparently started in a pop-up vape shop occupying a ground-level retail outlet and spread rapidly upwards. The dome of the 19th-century structure partially collapsed and 250 firefighters and a high-pressure hose drawing water from the River Clyde were needed to get the fire under control. A key architectural symbol of the former ‘second city of the empire’ was brought low. It wasn’t quite Glasgow’s Notre Dame moment, but desperately sad nonetheless.
This is the fifth major fire of a historic building in Glasgow in recent years. In 2014, Charles Rennie Macintosh’s art school was severely damaged after an exhibit in a student graduation show caught fire; then, the art nouveau masterpiece was virtually destroyed by a second fire in 2018. This one spread to the 19th-century ABC building, formerly a cinema and one of the first buildings in Scotland to have electricity, forcing it to close. An elegant but derelict Georgian terrace in Carlton Place south of the river was also severely fire damaged in 2024.
Glasgow, with its high percentage of historic buildings, many of which lack adequate ventilation of cladding, is particularly susceptible to fire (there are 143 buildings classified as ‘at risk’ in the city centre), but there are signs that the Central Station conflagration was the result of more than just the vulnerable, venerable architecture, but failings of a more modern kind.
The prime, though as yet unconfirmed, suspect is the lithium batteries in the vapes in the pop-up show. That would explain why when a passerby spotted billowing smoke emanating from the shop and rushed in to douse the fire with water it was to no avail. Water is possibly the worst option with lithium as it can exacerbate the fire and lead to a release of toxic fumes. Better solutions, like sand or foam, are not often readily available. This hazard is being increasingly witnessed in electric vehicle fires, the number of which has doubled in the past two years. London Fire Brigade reports an e-scooter fire linked to lithium batteries every two days.
Who will look after Glasgow? The number of trading standards officers the council employs has been halved in recent years due to budget cuts, meaning no action is taken against bad actors in the city unless a complaint is made. Morale at the trading standards office has been reported to be at an ‘all-time low’, as fewer and fewer officers deal with more and more issues. Given that Glasgow City Council is virtually bankrupt, it is hard to see this situation improving any time soon despite this almighty wake-up call.
There is a wider issue though: does Glasgow even care about its urban heritage? Whitewash might be applied and cracks papered over for prestige events like COP26 or the Commonwealth Games, and the still-outstanding facades are exploited now and again by Hollywood – Glasgow’s St Vincent St stood in for 1960s New York (with a lot of CGI) in Indiana Jones, but between times, the neglect is palpable, and any sense of urgency even in the face of obvious decay and regular destruction is hard to detect.
Partly this is down to confusion: Glasgow has always been a hybrid city as well known for the squalor of its slums and schemes as the Gothic glories of the centre and West End. Architectural critic Ian Nairn may have dubbed Glasgow a ‘topographical epic… a Beethoven symphony played over 150 years’, but not everyone agrees. The image and, in some cases, reality (rats have been a serious problem in recent years) of the Glasgow slum lingers on in the popular imagination, overwhelming an appreciation of or consideration for the architecture of Charles Rennie Macintosh or Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson.
Since the ambitious 50-year Bruce urban regeneration plan of 1945 there has been a desire to sweep away Glasgow’s past, concrete over everything and rebuild on modernist, socialist principles. For those in power (for decades Labour and now the chronically ‘progressive’ SNP) the architectural gems of the past are at best an expensive nuisance, at worst an embarrassment when the fashionable nostrums of the day decry that heritage as nothing more than the spoils of empire and the dividend of the slave trade. For Glasgow’s leaders, urban renewal has long meant social housing, ambitious and destructive transport schemes such as the notorious ‘box’ urban motorway scheme and gleaming modernist showpieces such as the SEC Armadillo events venue or the ‘Clyde Arc’ or the upcoming 36-story Ard tower.
In his crie de cœur lecture ‘The Shipwreck’, architect Rory Olcayto cites an unnamed SNP source claiming that ‘people are getting all wound up over old crumbling buildings’ and damning their ‘radical nostalgia’. Olcayto reports numerous efforts at respectful regeneration or conservation over the years which were either scrapped or botched by politicians whose hearts were clearly not in it.
In the end, it may be up to the local people to save Glasgow. We get the city we deserve, or vote for. Do we Glaswegians (I am one) care about our city’s architectural heritage or not? It is to be hoped that question will be answered in the affirmative before more distressing scenes like last Sunday’s are played out and more of the city’s fragile beauty is lost forever.
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