Glasgow University can build beautiful again

With the bill for the campus redevelopment pushing half of one billion pounds, why do our extravagant new buildings still feel soulless and uninspired? 

If I were to ask you why you came to study at Glasgow, I could hazard a guess at what your answer might be. Perhaps the prestigious rank of the University or the teaching and resources specific to your course? Maybe for the free education, or the rich cultural life of the city? But one thing that I think most students would mention, or at least something that certainly wouldn’t scare them away, is the effortless beauty of the campus and its surrounding area. 

However, it may come as a surprise to many, even graduates or long-time students of Glasgow, to learn that the current University’s campus isn’t its original, but actually a neo-Gothic creation of the mid-nineteenth century. The Gilbert Scott, for example, the University’s striking and iconic main building, was designed in the 1860s, only being completed nearly three decades later in 1890.

Strangely, this means that, while our campus has now been shut down by men in hi-viz, encased in scaffolding, and shuddering from construction equipment for close to half a decade - all in the name of seemingly unending expansion - in actual fact a very similar thing actually happened nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

Dubbed “the best of any building in Scotland” by Daniel Dafoe on his visit to the city in 1707, the original University of Glasgow building stood north of the city centre on Glasgow’s High Street. Its position opposite Glasgow Cathedral placed it atop the city which had grown from a modest fishing village and trading port, to the gilded Second City of the British Empire. 

It was Glasgow’s growth, however, with the accompanying overcrowding, grime, and pollution (as well as financial incentives) that led the University’s executives to pack up and relocate to a cheaper and cleaner site in the city’s West End - the familiar and comparatively bucolic Gilmorehill. I can’t help but wonder if our current selection of pointy-heads at the top would be capable of such an endeavour?

By 1870, the University had begun to take up residence at its current site, four years after construction had started. Some symbolic touches of the old remained, notably the ‘Lion and Unicorn Staircase’ on the west side of the building, facing Professors Square, and the Gatehouse at the bottom of the new University Avenue - both of which were, at least partially, transported and rebuilt on the new site.

The new campus was a breath of fresh air into the University, quite literally, and opened up space for expansion to incorporate a growing student population - sound familiar? The new site wasn’t without its detractors, however, with some criticising the lack of facilities. Although, as new money poured in, the campus began to be expanded with important additions such as the University chapel and John McIntyre building, the latter of which now houses the Students’ Representative Council.

The history of the Gilbert Scott is also a family story. After the death of the original architect who gave his name to the building, his son, John Oldrid Scott, oversaw the completion of the project. This included oversight of the finishing touches to the iconic tower and striking centre-piece: Bute Hall. Compare this to the story of our new campus development, overseen by myriad acronymed architectural firms: Strallan-Brothers, Hassell, HOK, HLM. To each of these, the University has handed over hundreds of millions of pounds, and what have we got in return?

The new campus development began in 2017 with the plan to redevelop the site of the old Western Infirmary which has now been largely demolished. So far, four main buildings have been opened: the James McCune Smith Learning Hub (JMS), the Advanced Research Centre (ARC), the Clarice-Pears building, and the new Adam Smith Building.

While it is difficult to pass judgment on the current development while it is still very much a construction site, I can’t help feeling a sense of discomfort on the rare occasions I walk through the new public square. Rare, because I only walk that part of the campus when it is absolutely necessary. And why would I stick around, with only a few sparse saplings and uncomfortable concrete blocks for benches amidst a desert of brushed stone?

Perfectly curated renderings of the new campus aside (which the University loves to share widely), facing the reality of these buildings in-person, one finds that they are wholly both uninspiring and unremarkable. Inside, the architecture of ceilings with exposed inner-workings is somehow both bland and overbearing. Standing in the lobby of the New Adam Smith, for example, you could be forgiven for thinking you had wandered into the wrong building, each being so identical and without character. 

A recent letter in The Guardian sums up, I think, the general sense of malaise many in the University sector feel at the direction of travel. It read: “Your editorial on the university funding crisis rang painfully true from inside a crumbling old campus building opposite a shiny but soulless new campus expansion.”

Alas, the letter was signed anonymously, but I can’t help wondering if the “soulless new campus extension” is in fact our own. Although, as a senior academic at Glasgow said to me about the letter: “I can see the resonance, but it honestly could be from one of dozens of universities across the UK.”

The Gilbert Scott building is in many ways the University’s most valuable asset. Isn’t it miraculous that before the age of the image, before Rowling’s Hogwarts, before Tiktok and Instagram, that a Victorian architect was able to design something which senior managers of the University, over a century later, would be able to market in a way that brought cash pouring into their coffers?

And how foolish are we now, while entirely conscious of the importance of aesthetic beauty in remaining marketable, to build hulking white sandstone pillars clad tacky orange and expect our community to feel excited and inspired on our campus? 

If only our Senior Managers would slow down and take stock. Although, as the aforementioned lecturer said to me: “Things aren't as bad in Glasgow just now, or yet in Scotland as a whole as in England for various reasons, but I'd be careful about feeling too confident about that in the long run.”

With at least three more flagship developments on their way, and a rapidly eroding budget surplus, perhaps before any reevaluation of their priorities, it’ll be a closing of the purse strings that ultimately force the University to bring this construction grinding to a halt.

Published 29 April 2025