Glasgow needs protecting |
A corner of Glasgow’s historic Central Station was destroyed by fire last Sunday in scenes that resembled the 1970s disaster film Towering Inferno. The fire apparently started in a pop-up vape shop occupying a ground-level retail outlet and spread rapidly upwards. The dome of the 19th-century structure partially collapsed and 250 firefighters and a high-pressure hose drawing water from the River Clyde were needed to get the fire under control. A key architectural symbol of the former ‘second city of the empire’ was brought low. It wasn’t quite Glasgow’s Notre Dame moment, but desperately sad nonetheless.
This is the fifth major fire of a historic building in Glasgow in recent years. In 2014, Charles Rennie Macintosh’s art school was severely damaged after an exhibit in a student graduation show caught fire; then, the art nouveau masterpiece was virtually destroyed by a second fire in 2018. This one spread to the 19th-century ABC building, formerly a cinema and one of the first buildings in Scotland to have electricity, forcing it to close. An elegant but derelict Georgian terrace in Carlton Place south of the river was also severely fire damaged in 2024.
Glasgow, with its high percentage of historic buildings, many of which lack adequate ventilation of cladding, is particularly susceptible to fire (there are 143 buildings classified........