1999-2000
gm + ad architects
Refurbishment and extension of a 1960’s office block in central Glasgow. Nicknamed ‘Turkey in Bacofoil’ (architects' favourite) and ‘Kit-kat’ the building's key feature has to be the shiny aluminium cladding. The south front is a clean slice of glass curtain walling, but the East end becomes more sculptural. The building bows out and up, with random miniature windows to the north façade.
The Spectrum interior is a clean renovation and pales into insignificance compared to the imaginative exterior: this building uses modest means to maximum effect and some architects may think this is all foil wrapping and no substance.
The shimmering sea of shiny silver sits atop a solid base of reflective black granite. This solid datum and the regular division of the facade help control the dynamic and random contortions of the cladding. The inflections and subtle modifications are for me more appealing than the wildness of say Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim. Above all this is an amusing building, an uplifting beacon in a dour part of Glasgow.
gm+ad Challenging Contextualism
Penny Lewis, Stephen Spear
£20.00
Paperback 120pp (2003)
Publisher: Gordon Murray & Alan Dunlop Architects
ISBN: 1903653150
Challenging Contextualism
gm+ad architects Book Review
Rennie Mackintosh
Alexander Thomson
Scottish Architecture
Glasgow Buildings
Scottish Architects of the past
Glasgow News : back to index
Adjacent building by Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects:
Radisson Hotel Glasgow
Spectrum Building Context : Sentinel Building by gm+ad