High Rise and Fall, Glasgow, Gorbals documentary 1993
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- Опубліковано 16 бер 2015
- Documentary about Queen Elizabeth Square, Sir Basil Spence's block of Brutalist style flats built to replace the Gorbal's tenements in Glasgow during the 1960's. His vision was based on architect Le Corbusier's ideas and aspired to transforming the Gorbals in to a Modernist Utopia.The film is the life and times of one building told by some of the people involved in it's history. The block was dynamited in 1993 amidst controversy and the death of a spectator. It is mentioned is Pevsner's Notable Buildings of Britain. This film was shown on BBC Scotland's Ex-S strand in 1993. Produced by May Miller and directed by Conrad Blakemore. This film is posted for educational and research purposes only and is copyright of BBC Scotland. Archive material courtesy of the Scottish Film Archive and the film's contributors.
- Фільми й анімація
“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”― Tennessee Williams.
I love how the architect and the graphic designer like to dance around with comparisons to ships and gothic architechture without calling it a depressing damp brutalist shit-hole which is a fairer description. I was brought up in one of these buildings as a kid and it was fucking grim. The whole building soaked up rain like a sponge.
Too right. Same old same old they wax lyrical but they would never live in one of these flats.
Do you remember martin the concierge? He was my dad. He's dead now though and the other concierge kenny now works as concierge in the caledonia road flats. There's no sense of community the way there was back then. We lived 21 up in the c block and the guy who owned the local pub would send care packages up to my mum when the lift broke down and she was too heavily pregnant too climb up and down stairs
Yeah, they really do not understand how certain communities live. The worst thing about that knighted bellend was the fact he didn't even understand how the weather impacted the living conditions. I hate people like, it makes us designers look like overeducated arrogant cockwombles.
Aye, they’re always well supported by people who don’t have to live in them
Spence and his like should have been compelled to live in one of these for a year. Sheer arrogance from someone who had never been to Glasgow before.
From street slums to high rise slums.
Helen Tinney, mentioned at the end, was struck in the chest by a piece of concrete during the demolition. She had been standing in the official safety zone during the demolition but it obviously hadn't been far enough away. She died later that day in hospital and her daughter sued the demolition company. Really sad thing to happen.
Tragic 🥺
Imagine getting chibbed on the last day. Very sad.
@@jimmyduncan7650 like being the last man killed at the end of ww11
At 28:20 , I was thinking it looked a bit out of control, and wondering if the people around were in danger. I guess that question has already been answered. Poor woman.
@@pcno2832 I was three and I was the child picked to press the button to blow the queen Elizabeth flats. I've always proud of that. Now I feel guilty
I went there in 1980 when I was 15.
One of the most welcoming and friendly places I have ever been to.
I went to a place called “Doigs Coaches” with my father on a job. They checked the car over while we were working for our return journey to the Black Country. Great bunch of people there too.
Having been born in Glasgow in 1993, its really hard for me to watch these glasgow documentaries, its kind of emotional and difficult to process.
Why?
My parents moved us down south in 72/73 because they didn't want us growing up in depression times in Glasgow. It's still my birthplace and i visit family whenever i can get up the road. The ending reminded me of The Still Game episode. Thanks for the upload.
Built in the 1960s and blown up in the 1990s. A life of just 30 years. What a waste.
Thomas McGee no one actually cares
Thomas McGee The entire Gorbals do look a lot better now though... www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+new+gorbals&prmd=inmv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAtsmu6r_RAhUCKpoKHczSBFUQ_AUIBygB&biw=360&bih=559
Experiments often fail, Especially when they are devised by intellectual snobs who think they know what's best for the underclass
Almost NONE OF these things are ever engineered to outdo 40 years. Maybe 50 years here in drier places like Australia but with Scottish weather it wouldn't make 50 years. The only exception to this is certain drain systems and bridges. But don't except much of that to make 50 years either. It's not made of STONE but concrete. And concrete deterioration is FAR far quicker than stone.
True
My parents come from Glasgow they got out emigrating to Canada in the sixties there were many of them in this part of Canada my dad call Canada the land of milk and honey they made a success of their lives and they stuck together helping each other with jobs anyone out of work or just arrived in Canada were taken in and gotten on their feet but they were so tough and I never understood why until my mom told me about the lives they led and where they came from I’m Canadian I’ve never been to Scotland but they remained proud of their heritage their time is ending now but their legacy will live on
buggeroff you obviously haven’t any manners
Yvon C But look at the punctuation on that ignorance though... near perfect.
@buggeroff So where, pray tell, is the good life?
That comment is a lung buster. Glasgow looks nothing like this now. I was born and bred in Glasgow, nothing to be ashamed off. You make it sound subservient and awful. Canada was never the ‘land of milk and honey’. That was romanticised for emigration purposes.
not in punctuation it won't
That Janice Kilpatrick one defo cried when the Art School went on fire.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house 20 miles away from Glasgow..My mother always said the site of these flats put the fear of death into her any time we passed by on the road.
Filing cabinets for people.
Filling cabinets are more difficult to knock down.
Hahahaha crying with laughter at your comment. One of the funniest I've ever seen on UA-cam my friend! LOLLL
😂👍
Most people are dumb zombie sheep anyway too dumb to realise they are being herded to their doom as totally exposed here ua-cam.com/video/98qv9ztkW_U/v-deo.html
Welcome to Capitalism - you are only worth exactly what you can afford it seems.
"It's a healthy looking boy you've got there," "Yes, we've eaten the wee lassy."
I moved 2 miles south of here not long before this. The old victorian era tenements when not overcrowded and when heated and insulated are excellent housing, big, room, high ceilings, thick walls, old wood and in some many old features. The problem was never the housing that became slums proper to these tower blocks, it was the way that housing was misused, essentially for profit.
I remember watching the demolition back in 1993. And guess what? They did eventually build hideous yuppy flats on the site.
I was there with my mum and dad i was 7 at the time. my dad helped build them and always mind the material flying over our heads and chunks of concrete bouncing over the fence blinded with the dust. crowd choking panicking with confusion the only thing thicker than fear in the air was the tons of concrete and probs asbestos that weren't considered at the time. can still see a couple of people that were front row getting strecherd out to the the service.
David Tannahill I remember that too. I’m sure someone died that day an old lady
johnmcluskey did you used to go to St johns primary?
Janey Jester I used to go to school with her grandson Darren Tinney
@@kammy205 yes Helen Tinney. Hit by flying concrete, The programme is dedicated to her memory, since then the exclusion zone around controlled explosion demolition has been doubled
I was born in queen Elizabeth flats and I still have pictures of them being blown up. My dad was actually one of the concierges
Helen Tinney was a friend of my family , she died during the explosion , RIP
My grandfather was born in gorbals in 1890s paid his way through university and became a GP and moved away
Fascinating
Must have been a Psychic too
I remember running round the dark corridors .. Had a good mate who lived there... Back stairs smelling of vinegar , piss & shit!! And to top it off , on the day they were demolished a local women was killed by flying debris .... Mrs Tinney... God rest her soul 🙏🏻💚💔
That’s it! I had a friend who lived in one, they just became ruin. I remember the lady killed by flying debris.
I was fairly near where she was killed,then i moved along a bit
I knew a Chick Tinney fae the Gorbals hope there was no relation
www.heraldscotland.com/news/12179114.family-sues-over-gorbals-blast-mother-61-died-after-being-struck-by-flying-debris-as-she-watched-demolition-of-22-storey-flats/
It was the tenants that ruined them. It still happens today, areas looking like shitholes due to the people that live there I.e Govanhill
I was only four months old when these flats were demolished so I don't remember anything except always hearing about the woman who was killed and, checking that it wasn't a myth, I went online and did some background research. What they haven't mentioned in this documentary is that twice these flats had to be evacuated due to flooding which eventually caused dampness. The company that carried out the demolition eventually went bust and the death of Helen Tinney, who was killed when debris from the flats hit her in the chest, may have contributed to that.
@Jamie Im from Dalmarnock (we used to have powerstation) loads of jobs available then they slowly went and it turned into a shit-pit
So it got flattened for that 2 week sports day (or Commonwealth games) and now its refered to as the Commonwealth village, nobody wants to use the term, Dalmarnock, because of the negative connotations
and its exactly the same with the Gorbals, oh sorry, "Oatlands"
Some yuppie in there new flat know that if it is advertised as Oatlands, and not Gorbals, its and extra £10k onto value of flat
My first boyfriend, Jamie Doyle, lived in the middle B block .. three floors up .. his family moved from Oatlands but his Da was originally from Ireland.
He had a wee sister called Elizabeth.. I wonder what became of them all ☘💚
@@andrewmckenna00 it’s exactly the same here in the Eastend. Haghill (where I was born) is refereed to in listings as ‘Dennistoun’. It’s dressed up with a fur coat & no knickers because those of us from the area know it to be Haghill & a right shit hole of a place. They do this to justify exorbitant rents.
I'm also from haghill, born and raised..I moved away years ago but it really annoys me to see haghill referred to as Dennistoun. Not to mention what landlords are charging to rent flats out there. It's still the same gray, heartless area it was in 93 🙄.
The wee guy at 12:15 must have been popular with the neighbours. The sound-proofing was abysmal, Imagine having to listen to that above or below you, you would want to throw him over the balcony.
Seems hard to believe but i used to go from Cornwall to holiday in the Gorbals as a child as we had family there. I loved it and still remember the place and the people to this day.
They never thought of peoples funerals,my Grandfather's coffin had to stand head to toe in lift,so could get him to the hearse,very undignified!!
that is so wrong
Jim Wright so
Jim Wright,
Sorry to hear about the way your Grandad made his last journey out of Queen Elizabeth Square.
Despicable !
I bet Basil Spence wasn't shoved in a lift .
The lifts in my nans old high rise had a compartment in them to put coffins in ,
@Donald Mackay id say launch the coffin through the front window of the guy who designed the flats, but i looked it up and hes been deed since 1976. fuckin bastart never even suffered seeing the full consequences of his pish design
I had relatives that lived in those flats and they loved them back in the 70s
Well, according to the other comments your relatives are totally wrong.
no matter how good High Rise flats look when built they always end up future slums
I think it would be worthwhile to wonder why they end up as slums rather than assuming that is always the case.
Solid thesis...
They were made fast and cheaply cause it was inevitable that they wouldn't be standing long ,it was a social experiment, but they improve on the errors each time, until these people could eventually be living more precociously than the queen herself, lol
Ballymun flats in Dublin City was the same, when they were built you had to go through an interview process to get one, it wasn't long before ghettoization and social problems kicked in, it was a truly scary and intimidating place to even drive through, rows upon rows of dull graffiti covered concrete, burnt out cars everywhere, often wondered how people could live like that
@@czarpeppers6250 I'm of the opinion high-rise living doesn't tend to work too well in the UK and Ireland, it does in places like sweden
Brilliant upload. Thanks for this! Shame they are now gone as they were some of the more interesting ones for sure!
Regardless of all the social and economic problems this - and many other similar housing schemes - area had, the strong sense of community is prevalent. Sadly, when places like this are razed to the ground the residents are dispersed elsewhere in the city and the sense of community becomes lost. I live in a Glasgow perhiperal housing scheme - Drumchapel - and, in spite of its problems and large demolition programmes, the sense of community still exists. In spite of its stigma, I love living there.
Same in the U.S our projects displace people and are people homes people do stick together use to and everybody knows everybody back then in the projects in States
There is still a strong sense of community in the Gorbals. I still live here and people love it.
My dad was the local welfare rights officer, my mum ran the food co-op and my stepdad was the concierge in the c block
Having a neighbour practicing the bag pipes in a high rise must have been really homely
Homely hahaha ffs
He would have been chucked off the balcony
Crack pipe you mean
It was good for C.B radio 10/4 top flat
@24:47 R.I.P George Kirk, aka Cookie aka diamond eyes, so many lassies in primary school had their first crush on Cookie.
Queenie flats and the dampies. The place where real community spirit thrived.R.I.P Mrs Tinney.
Gone but never forgotten.
@michelle lyon I noticed him straight away, what a looker!😍
Fascinating valuable and at times very moving film thanks for making it available
Now just glass blocks instead of concrete ones
How we’ve evolved 😂
It's clearly much more profitable nowadays, and after the next round of demolitions surely will be even more so
Yes, you are correct but they're certainly a lot better to look at, which surely has to have a positive impact on the mindset of those who live within
@@floydroyds4069 better to look at how? Because your home looks like a monotonous, soulless office block? Concrete/stone/brick blocks are much nicer to look at and more homely than the glass and steel ones we see today, which just look like places of work for white collar types.
@@ellisedwards2887 funny you should say that, I literally live in a council block in London, maybe you shouldn't assume next time.
Loved staying there. Best time of my life. Probably not as good as I remember but still, I loved it looking back.
Frankie Boyle mentioned in his book that while growing up in the Gorbals there was wind tunnels between buildings where you would be lifted off your feet.
Thats hilarious! I was raised in Ravenswood projects in Queens, NYC. It was a great place to grow up. I can imagine us being lifted up and blown or flying about our buildings. Sorry for your loss. Ravenswood has been improved.
I can believe it. I live in an area of Leeds with many high rise flats/ buildings and I was once dragged along by some sort of crazy wind that suddenly sprang up between them. I must have looked daft
tottering in tiny steps just to stay upright, and my hand grazed and bleeding from touching the wall in an attempt to stay upright. Umbrellas are regularly ripped away as you go along!
But there is a kind of community spirit that springs up, despite some rough memories of violence, drug abuse and even suicide jumpers. They've just refurbished our 3 close together blocks, and who knows how long they'll be in use. For now, they seem to have dealt with the mould problem, but we'll see...
I can remember watching that demolition when I was 13 from the hill beside the Castle Cash & Carry.
As a young kid I lived in high rise flats but we moved cos my mum took ill and couldn’t cope with the stairs but I loved the flats also their still their today mostly young single parents refugees and homeless in their first home and as we wee high up the view was amazing
4:00 she managed to say great step forward and final solution in one sentence 😬
Jawohl comrade Mao😆
The introduction of heroin ruined these city communities of the U.K.
mattep1ao Nope, peoples decision to take it did
No the criminalization did.
Haha 😂
Heroin is not just the problem,
Its the loss of jobs like shipbuilding and manufacturing, high movement of people (you used to have same neighbours for decades, but that slowly changed), which meant there was no community,
Bring in boredom, and then a wee bit of powder to cure that boredom and its a recipe for disaster, devil and idle hands
I used to live in the high rise in Dalmarnock, and we used to have a social club (my grampa ran it) and had parties, boys brigade, scouts etc, there was an actual community, when the tories took away all the grants, social funds etc, they slowly diminished and Dalmarnock became a total cess pit
Sod it then, fascism or communism it is then
great doc,thank you !!!
Buildings like this work when people who really want to live that way pay a premium for a nice flat with a view. But when they are only intended to jam a lot of poor people into the smallest possible footprint, they almost always seem to end up like this. It only takes a few bad tenants and the death spiral begins. Having a derelict next door in a row house would be bad enough, but sharing a hallway or an elevator with one, or more, would be reason enough to move.
Very well said. It doesn't work well for poorer classes.
Betty Edgar, I went to school with her daughter Lizzie. Great woman is Betty. Still see her on the bus coming from Rutherglen. Did a lot of community work there. She used to run the summer play-scheme there which I went to.
My mum ran the local food co-op and my dad was the welfare rights officer
Someday everyone will appreciate buildings like this as much as old tenements and terraces. Real depressing architecture is the soleless, low-quality suburbs of the last 30 years. Tiny boxes built for the developer's profit crammed onto greenfield sites. No regard for architectural quality or interest, for efficiency or the environment. These towers represent an idea which in many ways worked. There was so much potential to clean them up and give them a rebirth for the new millennium. Some landscaping and greenery around the base and a refit indoors for example. The same structure could have easily been incorporated into a new, high-quality reincarnation of the area. Architecture with interest is what is important, in many ways these blocks mean the same to Glasgow as the tenement. They are embedded in our culture and shared history. These were the very best examples with the most architectural merit, they should have been listed and redeveloped. Look at what we have in their place; pathetic lowrise flats that could be anywhere and are almost fashion statements of the decade they were built. Compare that to the world renowned modernist icon they replaced.
..well said..
Good comment mate, thanks
Thanks for posting
I find concrete high-rises rather fascinating. Shame about the design flaws and serious neglect towards the end, making them uneconomic to keep. I do wish that one block had been saved and renovated. Could have been quite a Glasgow icon today?
Did you live on one ?
@@tjm3900 Yawn.
Janice Kilpatrick really does believe that a turd, can in fact, be polished.
Glasgow has a thing about upgrading buildings by giving new bathrooms, wiring, windows etc then after a few years...pulling it down, I've noticed.
I used to go visit my granny in old rutherglen road and then walk over to visit my auntie and uncle Rose and Bobby Rennie my cousins Robert and Amanda wish I could go back to them days 🙏🏼❤️
The people getting all arty farty over the design don't live in those disgusting monstrosities. They are so institutional.
must have been quite a few thick brown envelopes changing hands !
You hit the nail right on the head there.
not really. more a case of building methods advancing so rapidly that the people providing the money for public housing projects (i.e. the councils/the corporation) had absolutely no idea what they were funding and so the contractors were free to completely screw them by cutting corners everywhere. the authorities are not free from blame of course, but if you want to blame someone blame the contractors. watch adam curtis' documentary "the great british housing crisis" for a better understanding of how things went down
@@jemimallah2591 Well i was young at the time and a relative worked for a famous architect and i thought this is all a case of the emperor's new clothes.Later I was well aware of the Poulson/Pottinger scandal.Of course the contractors cut corners but there certainly were brown envelopes involved as well.The real tragedy was also the number of good solid buildings that were demolished in the pursuit of money.I could tell a few good stories about that.Living in Edinburgh i know that a few good people managed to stop some real vandalism that the councillors had planned.It was going to be even more horrific in Glasgow if they had flattened the whole city centre as they had originally hoped to do.The Adam Curtis documentaries are very good but he can be selective in his views.I did watch them all again a few months ago.
@@redpilledpict2747 Everything is a massive scam and these Mafias in this video here get away with it because the masses are too dumb to realise what is going on and don't want to know either ua-cam.com/video/98qv9ztkW_U/v-deo.html
I remember watching this outside my work, ( castle cash and carry) , it was amazing but not well organised, everyone was saying how the crowd was too close.
When they began to fall, the dust and debris was everywhere, you couldn't see in front of you , we all ran indoors. It took such a long time to clear and When you came outside the cars were covered in the dust.
Does anyone know where I can get this on dvd?
Amazing how many people ended in corby. Love these people x
Notice people say how great it started off? Well, I think the lack of maintenence defintley played a part in the toiwer block's downfall but couple that with the fact that the early tennants were mostly families led to a gradual increase in anti social behaviour as these families grew up.
25:13 is exactly what happened here and where I stay in Sighthill ..spooky that lady called it
My father lived in tenements and that's why he loves where he lives now in a single detached home
hi rise flats are depressing
Agree strongly, people that live in high risers should be offered an allotment as part of the deal as its nice to have your own private green place to go to on a sunny day.
They’re actually no. Try living in one and then come back to me.
3:18 in is my stepdad Taig McGinley who has passed away this week 😢 😭
Condolences 🙏
John Toye on the old footage at the start, was Scotland Today anchor through the 70's into the 80's. Looked like War of the Worlds backdrop, seen some ugly scenes around there 88-90 but went to school with a lot of guys there that were cool, nice honest decent people, screwed by authority - like Britain all over for people in similar circumstances these past 70 years..
Burd at the beginning is a belter
pure whopper mate. that accent dunno wtf that was...
Gordon Duffy She'll be fae the west end mate snobby burd, but she is nice on the eye.
Kate Aidie, I think She still reads the news.
@Donald Mackay Sorry Mate, meant to say Kay Adams lol
as long as she keeps her mooth shut mebbe
*I Love Watching These 60/70s Housing Documentaries Watching & Listening to Real People :-) My Best Friend Here in Manchester is from Glasgow's Old Gorbals, I Live in a 50s HighRise wv Verander 1.Mile from Manchester CityCentre They Spent Millions On v Exterior & Now Surrounded By New Builds Mostly Glass HighRise..
Woman at 0.27 nailed it perfectly... Glasgow was unique and very different but all must come to an end.
19:00.... That music and editing. Talk about spooky.
Remember watching them fall from the high rises at PollokShaws!! Could hear the bang and see all the smoke from there
6:15 there are 3 high-rise buildings at the Oatlands end. I'm sure there was 4 and 2 of them got demolished mid 2000's if I remember correctly.
And to think these were intended to be the high price high quality showpiece of the Hutchesontown development, Basil Spense was allowed a higher budget compared to his former associate Robert Mathews Hutchesontown B (Which still stand today) and a longer build time (Royston A high-rises were completed before Basil finished his foundation's) so the short life and design faults were inexcusable, some vibrant colours mightve helped stomach the daunting styling
I'm from Royston and this is a sad story!
The lifts in these builds were more like a communal toiler that stopped on every floor ....had to watch where you parked as well , some times you had to dodge a TV or a mattress from the 20th floor.
All I can remember about those days is that nearly everyone was poor.
Yeh, poor with two mobiles and a 52" plasma drinking fucking lattes...
@@annother3350 They work hard for their POVERTY! They can spend their hard earned cash on whatever the fuck they want!
@@annother3350 its still poverty, just a new look.
@@VivalaryMan It's not like the things my grandparents used to tell me about though man. My granddad had to start work at 13 to earn literally a few pennies to keep his five sisters fed. It was a fucking tough existence. When I was a child we'd be lucky to go to a cafe twice a year. Now the schools and parents have failed the poor so badly most of them cant cook and rely on fast food every day!! Sure the gap is growing between rich and poor but by old standards being poor today in the UK isnt that tough as long as you're not homeless
@@annother3350 The diffence is the deregulation of the banks, when Thatcher came in and working class started borrowning for Material goods to the banks loan companies etc and the working class in to debt
To design a building that lasts 30 only years is disgusting.
Alan Fin Mactaggart in this case thirty years too long
The late John Toye from 1965 , awesome.
I was fortunate to grow up in a Bungalow 60 miles away from these High Rise flats. I shudder often, thinking about "whatif"......
I was there i must have been about 5 or 6 at the time, I used to stay in sandyfield Road.
24:15 "and nobody would even give her the time of day"
Wow, what an observation/insight by that man.
Are the David Naismith Flats still up in Springburn? Stayed there in 1989 for a week while visiting from Toronto Canada. Nice enough folk, but a bit of an air of menace about the place. I recall my cousin Paddy saying "even the dags go oot in pairs round here!" Otherwise loved Glasgow.
3:51 The drawings are nice.
And that Muriel Gray sound a like. Pish!!
I'm shocked she found her way from Byres rd to the gorbals. wonder if she'd have stayed there given the choice.
Houses inside actually quite good , used to drink in the Elizabethian pub below them , 😀
The old lady with the clock..... he thought nobody would give her the time of day but that REALLY sounds like DEMENTIA. Or some type of mental issues.
Taig McGinley's summing up was spot on 😅😅😅
The story about the clock was a joke but it had allot of meaning.
I grew up in the gorbals, from early 70s until the late 90s. Pine place flats were a absolute disaster. Houses designed for the south of France… what genius thought that was a good idea? I used to play around those buildings and clearly remember them being hideously damp and riddled with asbestos. My mother was a home help in the queen Elizabeth towers for a time. She said it was a god awful abomination. The junkies used to throw just about anything from the balconies. From fridges to even dogs. Should have come down far sooner. I can honestly say it was a truly depressing and on occasion a violent place that thankfully I escaped. Thankfully It’s completely transformed today….
Before there time. I think nowadays they would fit in better with how modern society is. People dont place so much importance on interaction with their neighbours. They should rebuild some mid rise developments about 10 storys high. But build well and include a mix of social backgrounds. So people who private rent, buy, social rent, and so on. Also maintance fees for the block that everone has to pay for so the block is keep in good order and the grounds are maintained. Modern day society would cope far better. It would also massively ease the housing crisis we currently face. 😊
Pretty apt the graphic designer using the phrase "the final solution" to describe the high rise blocks.
Das ist gut
Don't know why Basil Spence "didn't appreciate Scottish weather"..... he went to school in Scotland... he was Scottish, although born in India.
The architecture might be not for Glasgow but the people who live there are 2 nd to none, the community spirit in these places is fantastic, that's not to say every one who lived there were perfect,far from it, drug addicts, dealers,loan sharks, theifs ect, but 99 percent arelaw abiding folk who just wanted a better life for them and their loved ones, the people make the place
The steps looked
Very steep indeed.
I love Glasgow
Me too! I have friends that live there.
Great city Great people. I’m from Manchester and Glasgow is the only other place I’ve been that feels like home
I was there for the first time last year and really liked it, good place!
I think that edgit who built it also built the Divis Flats in Belfast and they were pulled down too.
I watched them being built....bang, bang , bang the piles were hammered in and the gorbals shook. As a wean I played in the long corridors and went up and doon in the lifts and as an adult I saw the social and human impact the concrete edifices brought with them....finally I was there On screen checking my watch at 27.43, just before the Big Bang! ......that’s me Steven ‘ribs’ Fraser. Oatlands bhoy!
Fascinating. It was pleasing to hear the ladies state how life was preferable to the slums.
@Old Crow all this talk of community spirit in the slums. That may be so but for many people the slums evoke memories of nothing but hunger, coldness, and poverty.
Flats better than the middens I suppose, but only a temporary fix, much better could have been done. I blame mostly the govt, lack of investments in our big companies for the people, drug, alcohol, and general wasters for ruining a potential fantastic area. The people of Glasgow deserve a lot more.
Who flashed the Bat signal! Holy shite, check out those eyebrows @25:35!
I remember when these flats were built in Rutherglen Road, Gorbals..Everyone was anxious to get issued one, to move moved into thrm from their rat infested slums.They were a bloody eyesore, but at least people weren't sharing outside lavatories in closes, and there were proper bsthrooms, not bathing in tin baths in front of a blazing fire. These were luxury then.
...and flats in high risers in the USA are a HOT CAKES today...they cost hundreds thousand dollars a flat!
They grow trees in buckets on the rooftops and balconies...but in Glasgow they were growing all natural...
I love everything about Scotland...
I'm a Scottish immigrant from Hawick. I was brought up in a tenement,and I would have loved to have lived high up. These flats being demolished in Glasgow would be classed as luxury flats in Auckland and be sold at $850,000.
I don't think children below 12 should be there, due to the design but that could have been worked on.
Going through Glasgow many years ago, I looked up and I thought they were magnificent. One councillor said it would cost 150M Pounds to fix up, after years of neglect. To my mind it was sweetie money.
These flats with proper maintenance would have lasted 200 years. The document was short on why they were demolished,who's idea was it? Most of the problems were no different from problems elsewhere. Capitalist Anarchy and wicked unreasoning nihilism and vandalism, why should I care living down under? It's because the same unthinking nihilists are busy here putting people out of public housing. Selling the same house or land to overseas millionaires.
People of Scotland voted to rid themselves of a corrupt and perfidious Labour Party. Quite correctly out of shear frustration voting for the Bourgeois Nationalists.
Scotland deserves a proper Marxist Labour Party. Up the Scottish working class!
+Michael Fay - They were failing the community. Most of the families felt they were like prisons and felt increasingly isolated. And its the same with the vast majority of these types of properties throughout Europe. They're all coming down for the same reasons. I think in places like Auckland, Sydney, and Miami the were not erected en-mass to house an over populated, poverty stricken city. The right decision was made i feel and Glasgow is the better for it.
Folk who were living in the flats gave mixed opinions,some didn't like them ,some did,some loved them.
I hate waste and as one woman commented,
" Pulling good housing down when there's so many homeless what a waste".
Flats like the Glasgow multi's,would have been heaven for say a homeless person or a Syrian refugee.
I saw luxury flats in a film on Beirut and it was something to envy.
I ask you are they unsuitable for the working class? I appears to me that were not being looked after maintained or made secure for the tennants.
Where did the tennants go? The video doesn''t say.
I would suggest that buildings don't cause crime but a class war society do's.
I am fond of Glasgow folk,here in Auckland I found them the least pretentious of people,which is more than I can say for the Hawick people I have come across.
Folk throughout the globe are being processed into a housing obsession. Capitalism no longer has any progressive use
and is turning in on itself and becoming a Rentier system.
I hope the Nationalists have a nuclear free Scotland as we have here in NZ. But i doubt it.
Cheerio for now.
+Michael Fay Those flats were a monstrosity, both aesthetically and in what they represented. They represented all that was wrong with Glasgow: poverty, crime and poor council planning. Those flats created a poor excuse for a community, a quickly bundled together block of flats which perfectly show the failed brutalist post war urban ideas of the 60s and 70s which still scar Scotland to this day.
I passed the flats some years ago,and I thought they looked great on the skyline. I did not have the experience of living in them. But the tenants themselves spoke well of them some didn't.
Indeed some spoke of an excellent community,and were in awe of their beautifull views. Some commented that the land situation would be used for yuppie development.
When the flats or any housing are given only basic repairs,they invariably decline. If they were well maintained with all amenities which middle class people would expect,then I suspect that the flats were deliberately run down to the prospect of the destructive vandalism by unscrupulous and corrupt politicians.
In fact you could say the same corrupt practices were carried out in Scotland as a whole and resulted in the total deracination of the Labour and Tory Parties by the Nats who no doubt will carry out similar practices once they settle in to similar sinecures.
The flats were dynamited by anti working class Labour and eventually,similar policies by the Nats. Will they get rid of Nuclear bases ?They mustn't be dynamited!
We live in interesting times!
+Michael Fay I repespect your skepticism of British politicians, however in this case it was the politicians that actually caused the problem. Those flats should have never been built. As usual the politicians were looking for a "quick fix" for the Glasgow housing crisis, and coupled with the architects who, in looking to stroke their egos, built massive towers.
All in all, this housing development was an unmitigated failure, not because of failing in its upkeep, but rather in its very construction. I was very happy in their demolition, and i'm happy when I look at the latest council housing developments. The communities nowadays are safer and the houses cleaner.
Raised in Maryhill in the 60's so never had the pleasure... 107 Oran street.. single end..outside toilet..107 was a "full wally".. right next to the wee shop in the gable end called swan's.. moved across the street when my sister was born.. Played in the rubble when they started tearing down the tenements... The only thing fashionable back then was corned beef and a vista boil in the bag curry... back in the days when respect was the norm..
I cannot think of a more plex-dependent city than Montreal (duplexes, triplexes, and so on) 🍺
I see a lot of people complain about these sorts of tower blocks. But at the end of the day, a roof over your head is a roof over your head, and frankly I think we need more projects like this today. Some may say that these sorts of places always end up as slums, but I think people should really be asking and looking at _why_ they end up as slums. Although these days I'm sure you can make much more pleasant looking buildings while not losing site of the purpose of them. But to be honest, I kind of have a soft spot for brutalist architecture, I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea though.
Plus, they were a hell of a lot better than what they replaced. I know people often say things like "isn't is awful that they torn down those old historic buildings"; now I love historic buildings, but when it came to what these blocks were replacing we're not talking about nice clean row housing. We're talking about nearly 100 year old neglected housing that was too small and in most cases were not worth restoring. Slums in the most accurate sense of the word.
It doesn't cost much more to make homes not look like monstrosities, controlling rents and keeping housing affordable is the answer not making awful tower blocks. You could fill that while area with 3 or 4 story buildings instead.
@@nutyyyy Indeed, I certainly don't think we should start throwing up a bunch of brutalist tower blocks, that just happened to be the trendy architecture of that period. Although to be honest I sort of have a soft spot for it, but I know I'm pretty much alone on that one haha.
It's mad too look back in time the good auld days and Iam only in my 30 s lol the auld glesga there only one Glasgow
..love it..
I genuinely don’t think anyone would choose to stay in a tenement, my granny was lucky she had a front and back door with 7 kids a single parent due to my grandad passing not long after my dad was born in 1945
Was that a young John Toye in the opening vid ?
Shame they are gone. If they are iconic enough to make a documentary about they should still exist.
Why? they were falling apart, Nicer buildings were put in their place.
Just from this video, these buildings look great against the skyline. I'm here in Canada and I'd say they'd fit right in here in Kitchener / Waterloo. Great look!
They’re long gone! It’s was a shithole! This area has now been fully rebuilt and looks amazing today. Luxury flats and houses have no been built.
@@SpookyElectric319 "Looks amazing".
@@LosBerkos compared to what they were they look amazing