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Ingram Square
The name given to the entire block between the Candleriggs and Brunswick Street. A variety of other houses and warehouses are knit together with an outstanding new one to form a square of flats and shops. The Candleriggs corner is occupied by Descartes, a steel-framed inter-war warehouse with characteristic large-pained windows. The rest of the Ingram Street frontage, and most of upper Brunswick Street, is occupied by the fascinating 1854 facades by R W Billings. Billings books Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland were primarily responsible for the Victorian Baronial revival, although here he eschewed revivalism himself. His crisp, finely detailed and eccentric facades owe little to historic Scots precedent: Dutch gables, reinterpreted turrets, oriel windows and string courses are pure invention. Indeed, his building further down Brunswick Street, with its aversion to any right angle, could almost be said to presage the buildings of Rudolph Steiner. The Burrell Company Ingram Square, Glasgow
The redevelopment of fourteen existing buildings within the heart of Glasgows Merchant City was one of the most significant events in the regeneration of the whole of central Glasgow. Initiated by Kantel the development was undertaken by a joint venture company established with Glasgow District Council and the Scottish Development Agency. The initial drawings were by Kantel and included some elaborate treatments for the new-build elements by Andy Bow. However architectural consistency was introduced by the retention of Elder & Cannon to work up the whole scheme and deliver the successful phases. In total the development delivered 240 flats, student accommodation, offices, 20 shops, parking for 108 cars and a large communal garden.
The building which set the whole thing in motion was formerly known as the Houndsditch, a B Listed, early Victorian academic exercise dating from 1854, designed by John Baird and R W Billings. The latters considerable fame as an architectural historian, with a particular interest in traditional Scottish buildings, is evident in the highly unusual treatment of the buildings original facades. The Houndsditch presented particular challenges. Ultimately it was reworked as a facade retention with three storeys set behind the retained frontages onto Brunswick and Ingram Streets. The scale rises to four storeys facing onto the courtyard and garden behind. This internal space also gives onto a substantial subterranean car park. As it evolved the significance of Ingram Square towards re-establishing a vibrant residential community within central Glasgow was increasingly recognised. The various warehouse buildings which had been rescued from dereliction si alongside infill sections which, while displaying the resolutely post-modern attribute of the mid 1980s, are carefully judged in scale and form against their neighbour and achieve the notable trick of re-introducing brick to a major Glasgow city central scheme without jarring. Ingram Squares significance for Glasgow and indeed in the wider UK context was acknowledged in two major cover features in the Architects Journal and in numerous awards. It also prompted a whole series of listed building residential refurbishments. It does not seen too much to boast that this project was the first major step in regenerating what has become a major leisure and tourism focus for Glasgow and of its most popular residential areas- The Merchant City. (责任编辑：) |
