This just seems absolutely criminal! Why do we continue to allow our built heritage to be destroyed, only to be replaced (in most cases) by some cheap, bland, sh*tbox of a building that probably won't last its today's minimum design life of 50 years?
So, just three weeks after my original post, on a quiet Saturday morning a digger was put through the gatehouse to the Victoria Infirmary at Glasgow’s Queen’s Park and within a few hours - by the time I got there - it was reduced to rubble.
I appreciate @WeAreSanctuary were within their rights here as, frustratingly, the gatehouse was neither listed or in a conservation area therefore this is permitted development; however, given that it was a building designed by one of the best mid-Victorian architectural practices in Glasgow - Campbell Douglas and Sellars, who designed the 1888 International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry at the Kelvingrove and what was the St Andrews Hall later the west extension to the Mitchell Library which is one of the finest neoclassical buildings in Europe - perhaps it should have been?
Regardless, when we are in a housing emergency demolishing a house which should have been brought back into use at least a decade ago is not a good look.
Part of what gives ‘The Victoria’ its kerb appeal is the contrast between the new buildings and the surviving historic buildings and the authenticity that lends it.
Sadly, yet again another historic building has been dispatched. It all feels at bit snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and leaves me concerned for the neighbouring Administration building which is at least ‘B’ listed and meant to be retained but is in increasingly poor condition and will no longer have the benefit of rates relief…