Riverside Museum Scotland, Zaha Hadid Glasgow building photos, Architect news, Scottish transport and travel collection location

Riverside Museum Glasgow

Kelvinside Transport Building in Scotland design by Zaha Hadid architect (ZHA)

post updated 22 September 2023

photo © Keith Hunter

Phone: +44 141 287 2720

Address: 100 Pointhouse Rd, Govan, Glasgow G3 8RS, Scotland, United Kingdom

photo © Keith Hunter

31 March 2016

Riverside Museum architect Zaha Hadid dies unexpectedly in the USA, on March 31 at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach, Florida.

22 May 2013

New images added:

photographs : Alan McAteer

photos : Alan McAteer

20 May 2013

Riverside Museum Glasgow Award

Riverside Museum wins European Museum of the Year 2013

The Riverside Museum, Glasgow by Zaha Hadid Architects has won the European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) at ceremony in Tongeren, Belgium.

Forty Museums from 21 countries across Europe entered this year’s awards. The European Museum of the Year Award by the European Museum Forum was founded in 1977 under the auspices of the Council of Europe, with the aim of recognising excellence and encouraging innovative processes in a museum world.

The judges said: “The Riverside Museum demonstrates brilliantly how a specialist transport collection can renew its relevance through active engagement with wider social and universal issues. The EMYA 2013 Judging Panel agreed unanimously that the museum fulfils the EMYA criteria of ‘public quality’ at the highest level.”

building photographs : Hufton + Crow

Councillor Archie Graham, chairman of Glasgow Life, said it was an “outstanding achievement. Our fantastic Riverside Museum has been crowned Europe’s best. That is no accident and is down to the hard work, passion and creativity of our staff who do everything they can to bring the stories of our transport and engineering past to existing and new audiences. They have made Glasgow proud.”

Lawrence Fitzgerald, Riverside Museum manager, added: “Everyone who has worked to make Riverside the success it is should feel incredibly proud. We were up against national museums in Edinburgh, Liverpool and major museums in France, Italy and elsewhere.”

Zaha Hadid said: “The Riverside Museum is a celebration of the passion and skills of everyone involved. The exhibits and building come together at this historic location on the River Clyde to enthuse and inspire all visitors. The design continues Glasgow’s rich engineering traditions and explores the cultural foundations that have defined the city.”

Since its opening, over two million people have visited the new Riverside Museum which showcases Glasgow’s transport, shipbuilding and engineering heritage.

5 May 2012

Riverside Museum Award

Riverside Museum wins European Museum Academy Micheletti Award 2012

Riverside Museum, Glasgow has been named the most innovative museum in the fields of technology, labour and social history by the European Museum Academy. Riverside competed against museums in 12 other European countries to win the 17th annual Micheletti Award.

photographs : Hawkeye Aerial Photography

In their citation, the judges noted that: “The careful planning of the museum included involving visitors and volunteers at every stage of the development.” The judges concluded: “The museum has put its budget and its large workforce to excellent use, it is completely publicly oriented, flexible and always on the outlook. It is making a change to a rundown neighbourhood, as well as being a showcase of past, present and future transport industries of Glasgow.”

Lawrence Fitzgerald, Riverside Museum Manager said: “The judges were particularly impressed by the relationships the museum had built up with people before, during and after opening and by the range of stories told at Riverside.”

Riverside Museum has already attracted more than 1.4million visitors since opening in June.

21 Jul 2011

Riverside Museum – Additional Photo:

photograph © Tom Manley Photography

22 Jun 2011

Riverside Museum Glasgow Opening

photographs © Tom Manley Photography

21 Jun 2011
Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson smashed a ceremonial bottle of champagne on the side of the riverside building, which houses the city’s vast of transport and travel collection.

Gordon Matherson said: “What a wonderful day. I’m thrilled to be able to hand over to you, the people of Glasgow, Glasgow City Council’s latest wonderful museum. The museum is about the riveting stories of Glaswegians, rather than stories about rivets.”

Despite heavy rain, by the time the Riverside Museum opened, at 10am, around 100 people had queued up.

The Riverside Museum has been funded by the City Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Riverside Museum appeal. Like all of the city’s 10 civic museums, admission is free.

The Riverside Museum replaces Glasgow’s former Museum Of Transport, the second most visited transport museum in the UK with an average of 500,000 visitors a year. It is expected 800,000 people will visit the new attraction in its first year.

9 Jun 2011

Riverside Museum Preview

Review by e-architect of today’s press preview with Zaha Hadid + 25 professional photos + 26 photos (from selection of over 100) by e-architect of the Glasgow Transport Museum online.

photograph : Hawkeye Aerial Photography

e-architect attended the Glasgow Transport Museum press preview on the 9th of June 2011, which kicked off with a speech by Gordon Matheson, Leader of the City Council.

“Being Glasgow we wouldn’t except anything other than world class”. He went on to describe the new building as “A beacon on the Clyde”. People often ask him “Is this Glasgow’s Goggenheim? We don’t need a Guggenheim. Glasgow is Scotland’s cultural powerhouse already”.

Glasgow Transport Museum Photos from 9 Jun 2011:

building photographs © Adrian Welch

He thanked Zaha Hadid profusely (twice calling her Ma’am) for her “creativity, energy, passion and commitment to my beloved city”.

photographs : Hufton + Crow

Next up was Zaha Hadid.

“It is our first cultural building in the UK. I’m really honoured, the Scots have given me two projects”. The other is Maggies Fife in Kirkcaldy.

photographs © Adrian Welch

Architect Zaha Hadid went on to say “It is very different from many of our other projects. We are taking on this idea of the shed, the station, the train station. It is a fluid space”. She elaborated on this fluidity – in the aerial images you can see the building is formed by a warped series of extrusions which related back to the ‘pleated’ sheds typical of the River Clyde shipyards – saying the extrusions pick up on motorways winding through the countryside, or trains winding along tracks.

photographs : Hufton + Crow

“If you ask me about the colour…I will restrain myself from saying why” – in fact the light green colour of the interior was THE talking point of the day!. Zaha went on to say the Transport Museum “is quite playful, not like an art gallery, not a white box”.

photograph : Hufton + Crow

Project Architect Jim Heverin spoke next:
The Riverside Museum had to be designed from the inside out. It is not about the objects per se but about the objects’ stories.

photographs : Helene Binet

Jim went on to say the “design both addresses the city and the river” alluding to the fact that the building has two entries, though the northern access served by vehicles is dominant. “The central spine is a great concept, column free, the heart of the building”. Due to the relationship with the river there is “no back of house, you walk round it, there is no plant externally, it is all in the roof space”.

photographs : Hawkeye Aerial Photography

Then to what is often the most interesting part of a press preview, the questions.

We were lucky, there was a warm-up act here, someone asked where the picnic tables were at the Riverside Museum. Zaha was amused, and not alone, but the ripple of amusement dwindled as the questioner refused to give in…Jim had to go further into detail about the granite landscape elements, but Zaha brought the matter to a finish with her offer to design a mobile picnic table that the questioner could purchase and take along.

photographs © Adrian Welch

The next questioner asked Zaha Hadid why she thought the Glasgow Transport Museum was ‘different’ than her other projects. Zaha said “it is like a soft shed” and that maybe it was similar to the building for BMW (in Germany, also by the same Project Architect). Hadid went on to say “I’ve been coming here for a long time”. A really interesting point for me (ref. various iconic architecture articles) was her statement that “many architects believe the brand should be repetitive. We don’t believe that”.

photographs © Adrian Welch

The next questioner asked how much involvement was there by Zaha on the Riverside Museum. Hadid replied “The story of any success is to delegate. I’m a pain to the team, I nitpick. I don’t think these guys want me to interefere too much”.

photographs © Adrian Welch

The final questioner asked why equipment blocked the Riverside Museum windows to which Zaha – and indeed many of us – appeared puzzled. She handled it with a quick snap of humour and that was questions over.

Views on the Glasgow Transport Museum welcome – info(at)e-architect.com. Compared to the old building this is a major step up, an enjoyable building that shows much more of the collection, and in a more engaging way. Glasgow seems to have a propensity for acquiring simple readable forms (aka ‘iconic buildings’) such as the Science Centre, the ‘Armadillo’, the Clyde Arc, all not far up the river from the Riverside Museum.

Concerns raised about the Riverside Museum seem to focus on the unrelenting green colour, the connection to other Clydeside buildings (not anything Zaha Hadid Architects could sort out – a macro issue for the Council) and the severity of the exterior.

Re the last point it could be argued that the grey starkness of the Riverside Museum exterior picks up on the industrial landscape of the Clyde, indeed the sombre zinc facades feel appropriate when considered against Glasgow’s industrial heritage. After all that is what this building is about, for me it is about letting the next generation know of Glasgow’s mighty record when it comes to transport – not just ships, but trams, steam engines and so on.
Adrian Welch, e-architect editor

We took photographs of Zaha Hadid outside the Transport Museum building and were shown round by Project Architect Jim Heverin (with whom I served on an awards jury) followed by a brief meeting with Zaha Hadid.