What Glasgow can learn from Aberdeen

This is not easy for me to say. The natural Aberdonian instinct – and I’m sympathetic to it – is to resist change of any kind. I asked my mother if she liked the new Gardens. No, she said. I asked her if she’d actually been to them. No, she said. The letters pages of the local papers are also full of people complaining about the changes to the garden, and the price (£28 million). They cry out “what have you done to the city I love (to moan about)?”

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But actually: the renovation of the Gardens has been done well. I would’ve preferred if they’d kept the beautiful Victorian Gothic Revival loos if I’m honest, but it’s a small point really because on the whole, they’ve kept what was good – the layout, the granite tiers – while adding some nice twists: a pond round the Wallace statue, a viewing parapet, and a coffee shop with Victorian Gothic Revival wi-fi. I’m using it to type this. Nice.

The redesigned Union Terrace Gardens caused a stir with some local Aberdonians resistant to the change (Image: Newsquest)

And to take advantage of my good mood, I also went along the street to look at the new Art Gallery (or new to me: it reopened in 2019 but this was the first time I’d seen it). Again: a lot of dosh was spent (£35m), but there’s an entirely new floor with outdoor viewing galleries and from one, you can look down to the bottom of Belmont Street and from the other out across to the circle of light/kickboxing ring. What a view.

It all works, I think, because the redesign of the gallery has stuck to the same principle of the Gardens redesign: add what’s better but keep what’s good. So the art has a beautiful new home (recommended: the Second World War art collection), but Alexander McKenzie’s original building, with that beautiful great wall of pink granite at the front, has largely been untouched. It’s art within art. Go see it.

I would also urge the men and women who take the decisions about Glasgow's architecture, mostly which bits to knock down, to drive up the A92 and take a look at what Aberdeen is doing. We know Glasgow’s legacy: the M8, the Gorbals clearances, and the mess of the city centre, but we also know that it’s not too late to learn a lesson: add what’s better but keep what’s good.

Take the Wyndford high-rise flats for example. I’m not suggesting they have the same architectural merit of McKenzie’s art gallery, but some of the residents are fighting to save them for a reason. The flats are affordable, they’re in a nice part of town, and people are worried about the environmental destruction and waste their demolition would cause. As in Aberdeen so in Glasgow: isn’t it better to improve what’s there rather than reduce it all to rubble and start all over again?

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I accept this is not an easy thing to get right: I’m worried, for example, about Aberdeen Council’s plans to essentially shut the beach esplanade to cars. Will people really park at Castlegate and walk down? What will happen to all the small businesses at the beach? It seems to me that planning no-car zones without first providing adequate public transport is doing things the wrong way round. And will you really deny me the pleasure of looking out to sea from my car while eating chips?

The moral of all this design and redesign, in the end, is that demolition should be a last resort rather than a first instinct. It still annoys me that Springburn Public Halls in Glasgow were pulled down in 2012 over the old chestnut of safety fears (i.e. deliberate neglect) and replaced with flats of the worst generic type. They could have learned from Aberdeen. They could have thought: how can we enhance and improve rather than smash and demolish? But here’s the good news: with the rest of Glasgow, there’s still time.