On the 16th December 1999, Dejan Sudjic gave a lecture to the 20th Century Society in London summing up the year's achievements for Glasgow 1999 UK City of Architecture and Design. I, of course, had to pop along and see what he had to say. Actually, he wasn't too bad. No stupid nonsense about 'the recognition of design excellence [being] inherent in [Glasgow's] people, business and culture' as the 1999 website crowed, but a blunt recognition that Glasgow is always knocking stuff down and building other stuff in its place.

Unfortunately, that's not entirely true — not the last bit. Here's one sad story of Glaswegian architectural neglect.

St Peter's Seminary

Designed by Isi Metzstein and John Cowell of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia. The architects were always on site tampering with the design of the priests' training centre as it was being built, which resulted in the builders referring to them as 'the alter boys'. Sadly, abandonment and wilful neglect have led it to be altered literally beyond repair (unless you've got about £5 million to spare).

Here's a few before and after shots.
(Black and white photos ©RCAHMS, colour photos ©thejoyofconcrete)

The main approach from the front



View from the courtyard



The convent block



The common room



The refectory



The altar

(Thanks to Stuart Graham for telling me about St Peter's.)

So, Deyan, not knocked down completely yet, but give them time.

Here's a map of how to get to St Peter's. It's at Kilmahew Ho (which was what St Peter's was built around, and which was burnt down by vandals in 1995).

P.S. I was interested to note that, of the four speakers at the 20th Century Society lecture about Glasgow 1999, none were Scottish, far less Glaswegian. Then I read the Guardian's end of term report on the event, which said the same thing with knobs on. Well worth a read.