Words: Stephen Kershaw

Picture: City of Glasgow photography students

NOW, this architectural treasure is pretty close to home for those of us at The Herald. Standing on the corner of Mitchell Street and Mitchell Lane, is the former Glasgow Herald Building, a red sandstone, Category A-Listed building. It is one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s first buildings.

The Herald moved to the site in 1880 and originally had a front office on Buchanan Street, with other accommodations leading back to Mitchell Street.

In 1892, a fire in Mitchell Street led to the redevelopment of the site by architects Honeyman & Keppie. Mackintosh, who was an employee of the firm, is widely believed to have been responsible for the design.

Mackintosh’s later designs are part of The Glasgow Style, a singular variant of Art Nouveau, developed by him and colleagues.

The Herald Building, however, is considered more a mixture of Renaissance and Gothic architecture with some Art Nouveau details, such as the organic motifs and the embossed date of construction, which appear on the rainwater hoppers.

With new innovations in construction such as structural steel, the new Glasgow Herald Building in Mitchell Street could be constructed with greater fire safety and with cast-iron columns supporting the floors, large spaces could be created for the printing presses.

The Herald building presents two elevations to the public, on Mitchell Lane and Mitchell Street.

These external walls were constructed from red sandstone from Locharbriggs, in Dumfries and Galloway, and worked into ashlar, the walls sitting on a granite basement.

At the corner of the building, a tower attached to the building structure reaches upwards to a height of 44.5m or 146ft.

At the top, a water tower designed to hold a 8,000-gallon tank draws the eye, and its corbelled out form dominates the building.

The tower rises upwards on Mitchell Street and provides views across Glasgow which can be experienced by taking the spiral staircase to the top of the tower and the observation deck within.

Behind the tower, attached to the east elevation, is a polygonal brick chimney, which again rises above the roofline to culminate in a castellated turret, with evenly spaced, recessed, arched windows.

Within the building, there is little ornamentation in the workspaces, however the external facades especially on Mitchell Street present a more interesting display. The ground floor is punctuated by a mix of large, floor-to-ceiling square and arched windows.

Above, each floor has different window sizes in a geometrically consistent and aesthetically pleasing arrangement.

As the building ascends, changing window sizes and protruding elements lead the eye upwards to an almost crenelated silhouette against the sky.

Since being refurbished and repurposed as Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture (completed 1999), The Glasgow Herald Building, now known as The Lighthouse, is experiencing a new level of appreciation.

Its successful redevelopment has saved a part of our architectural heritage and is an example of innovative and apposite conservation.