Met Tower | |
---|---|
Former names | Glasgow College of Building and Printing Glasgow Metropolitan College |
General information | |
Status | Completed |
Type | Academic (1964-2014) Office (2025-, anticipated) |
Architectural style | Modernist |
Location | Glasgow, Scotland |
Address | 60 North Hanover Street |
Coordinates | ( 55°51′48″N4°14′47″W / 55.8634°N 4.2463°W ) |
Year(s) built | 1961-64 |
Completed | 1964 |
Renovated | 2023- |
Owner | Bruntwood |
Height | |
Roof | 74.7 metres (245 ft)[ citation needed ] |
Technical details | |
Structural system | Reinforced Concrete |
Floor count | 14 |
Lifts/elevators | 4 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Peter Williams |
Architecture firm | Wyllie, Shanks and Underwood |
Main contractor | Melville, Dundas & Whitson |
The Met Tower is a prominent high rise building in Glasgow, Scotland, and was the main building of the former Glasgow Metropolitan College. It originally opened in 1964 as the Stow College of Building, and for most of its life has been known as the Glasgow College of Building and Printing. Its official address is 60 North Hanover Street.
The 14-storey structure is a major landmark in Glasgow city centre, overlooking George Square, and is one of the city's celebrated Modernist buildings. Its distinctive roof structures were directly influenced by Le Corbusier's famous La Cité Radieuse block in Marseille. It currently holds Grade-B listed status, and as of 2022 is owned by the property company Bruntwood SciTech.
The tower was constructed for Glasgow Corporation by Melville, Dundas & Whitson [1] between 1961 and 1964 as part of the new campus for the Stow College of Building [2] – in 1972 this entity merged with the Stow College of Printing to form the Glasgow College of Building and Printing (GCBP). It was designed by Peter Williams of the local architectural firm Wyllie, Shanks and Underwood, responsible for many large academic buildings constructed in the area at the time such as the adjacent Central College of Commerce (with which the tower shares close aesthetic similarities, the two buildings are essentially "sisters" of each other), and the James Weir Building of the University of Strathclyde. [3]
Like many high rise structures of the time, the building's aesthetic was influenced by the work of Le Corbusier, and Williams is cited as this being one of his major influences on his design. [4] Williams was praised for his successful interpretation of Le Corbusier's famous Unité d'habitation housing block in Marseille, but into the design of an educational tower, with characteristic features such as the gable end walls being clad in white Italian Travertine slabs and exposed pilotis at the tower's base. Another feature taken directly from Le Corbusier's work is a rooftop gymnasium housed within a distinctive penthouse structure - often nicknamed the "upturned boat". Similar to its contemporary - the nearby Livingstone Tower which was built during the same period - the tower featured high speed elevators and electric heating. The building was opened by the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 24 April 1964. [1]
The podium block, which was added to the north of the site and contained an assembly hall and canteen, was constructed in 1969. The tower was granted Grade B listed status on 14 February 2002 by Historic Scotland on account of its "outstanding importance due to the high calibre of design and construction as well as retention of original features". [5]
In February 2005, Glasgow Metropolitan College was formed by the merger of the GCBP and Glasgow College of Food Technology, administered from the GCBP building; it then merged with Central College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies in 2010 to create the City of Glasgow College. Thus the retronym Met Tower was applied to the building. [6]
The tower remained in use until 2015, when the construction of the new City of Glasgow College 'supercampus' on nearby Cathedral Street rendered it redundant. Controversially, as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games the empty tower was used to display a giant pink advertising placard entitled People Make Glasgow (at the time the city's marketing slogan) visible from George Square, which later became a source of much derision from the local press and public. [7]
In 2022, it was revealed that a development company had purchased the campus for £16m [8] [9] with a plan to repurpose the tower as office space for new technology start-ups,. [10] As well as restoring the building's exterior, the rooftop gymnasium will be converted into a private events space. To the north of the tower, an adjoining smaller tower will be constructed containing additional offices, with a plaza connecting the two buildings containing leisure and retail facilities.
Reconstruction work on the site began in January 2023, with the soft stripping of the tower itself. The demolition of the podium block on Cathedral Street took place over the summer of 2023. The new complex is scheduled to open in mid 2025.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and acquired French nationality by naturalization on 19 September 1930. His career spanned five decades, in which he designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, as well as North and South America. He considered that "the roots of modern architecture are to be found in Viollet-le-Duc".
George Square is the principal civic square in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is one of six squares in the city centre, the others being Cathedral Square, St Andrew's Square, St Enoch Square, Royal Exchange Square, and Blythswood Square on Blythswood Hill.
Modern architecture was an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the second half of the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction ; the principle functionalism ; an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.
The Unité d'habitation is a modernist residential housing typology developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso. It formed the basis of several housing developments throughout Europe designed by Le Corbusier and sharing the same name.
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Sir Robert Hogg Matthew, OBE FRIBA FRSE was a Scottish architect and a leading proponent of modernism.
The Athens Charter was a 1933 document about urban planning published by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. The work was based upon Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse book of 1935 and urban studies undertaken by the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in the early 1930s.
Charing Cross is a major road junction and area within the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated north of the River Clyde at the intersection of Sauchiehall Street, St George's Road, Woodlands Road, North Street and Newton Street, as well as being at a major interchange of the M8 motorway. Charing Cross marks the notional boundary between the City Centre and the West End of the city.
Central College, formerly Central College of Commerce, was a college situated in the centre of Glasgow. It merged with Glasgow Metropolitan College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies in 2010 to form City of Glasgow College. The college had links to universities such as Caledonian and Glasgow University and provided courses such as Business Studies, Information Technology and Health, Hair and Beauty, Legal Studies and accountancy.
Bridge to Nowhere is a nickname used to refer to various unfinished structures around the M8 motorway in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. They were built in the 1960s as part of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road project but left incomplete for several years. One "bridge", at Charing Cross, was completed in the 1990s as an office block. The Anderston Footbridge, a pedestrian bridge south of St Patrick's church, was finally completed in 2013 as part of a walking and cycling route.
Hutchesontown C was a Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) of an area of Hutchesontown, a district in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Its centrepiece were two Brutalist 20-storey slab blocks at 16-32 Queen Elizabeth Square, designed by Sir Basil Spence and containing 400 homes. Acclaimed by architects and modernists, the flats became riddled with damp and infestations, which could not be cured even with a major renovation in the late 1980s. They were demolished in 1993, with the demolition contractor using twice the amount of explosive necessary to destroy the building, killing a female spectator in the process.
Glasgow Metropolitan College was a further education college located in Glasgow, Scotland. The College was created on 7 February 2005 by the merger of the Glasgow College of Building & Printing and Glasgow College of Food Technology and itself merged with Central College and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies in 2010.
Ville radieuse was an unrealised urban design project designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1930. It constitutes one of the most influential and controversial urban design doctrines of European modernism.
The Livingstone Tower is a prominent high rise building in Glasgow, Scotland and is a part of the University of Strathclyde's John Anderson Campus. The building was named after David Livingstone. The address of the building is 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow.
The City of Glasgow College is a further and higher education college in the city of Glasgow. It was founded in 2010 when the Central College, Glasgow Metropolitan College, and the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies merged. It is the largest college and technical institution in Scotland.
The James Weir Building is an academic building in Glasgow City Centre, Scotland, United Kingdom and is part of the University of Strathclyde’s John Anderson Campus, situated between the Townhead and Merchant City districts of the area. It was completed in two stages between 1956 and 1964 as an extension to the Royal College Building. It is the third largest building on the John Anderson Campus in terms of overall floor area after the Royal College and the Curran Building. In addition, the stair and lift tower on the south east corner of the building is the second highest structure on the campus after the Livingstone Tower, and is highly visible throughout the eastern side of the city centre.
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Unité d'Habitation of Berlin is a 1958 apartment building located in Berlin-Westend, Germany, designed by Le Corbusier following his concept of Unité d'Habitation. Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation concept was materialised in four other buildings in France with a similar design. The building is constructed in béton brut and is part of the initial architecture style we know today as brutalism. The structure was built with on site prefab cast concrete panels and poured ceiling slabs. The Modulor system is the base measure of the Unité and Corbusier used not more than 15 Modulor measures to construct the entire structure form. Ultimately the work has been eliminated from Le Corbusier's oeuvre, which he confirmed himself until his death in 1965 and which has also been confirmed posthumous in 1967 in his last authorized publication of his work.
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