A Son of the Rock

In early December we were in Glasgow for two days.

I took the opportunity to photograph the Beresford Hotel in Sauchiehall Street for myself.

This is the front view, from Elmbank Street:-

And a close up on the entrance, showing some of the building’s detail:-

There is lovely glazing above the doorway and fine ribbing on the pillars and the red-painted walls.

This is a side view from Sauchiehall Street:-

Designed by Weddell and Inglis in 1937, the Beresford was opened to provide hotel accommodation for visitors to The Empire Exhibition of 1938 which was held in Glasgow’€™s Bellahouston Park.

The building is a stunner. A great example of high Art Deco. The present red on the facade may be a teeny bit over the top; I think white Art Deco buildings like this really ought to have pastel colours as highlighters, though it does look more pastelly in the close-up.

You can view the Beresford in its heyday at the Glasgow Story where it looks as if it has been somehow snatched from the streets of New York or Chicago and plumped onto Sauchiehall Street to sit rather like an alien spaceship.

Some more views including an interior shot are on this site.

For a while the Beresford had been converted to accommodation for students of Strathclyde University when it was known as the Baird Hall, at which time parts of the frontage, especially the rounded columns, seem to have been painted in a more restrained mustard colour.
As my Alma Mater (The University, as it still styles itself) is its city rival, I have to say that the chance of staying in the Baird Hall would have been the only reason to attend Strathclyde.

The building was sold on in 2003 and has now been refurbished to form 112 apartments.

Some more of its internal deco elements are on show here and there is also an apartment view.

For a 3D-ish colour sketch look no further.

There are numerous pictures of the Beresford on flickr including some night views.

What an absolute belter of a building.

Someone got to my blog by searching for “skottland art deco hotell” presumably because I’ve recently posted about the Balcomie Links Hotel or more likely the Beresford Hotel in Glasgow.

Anyway I looked at the google search page and found links to the Drumossie Hotel, Inverness.

A quick look through flickr turned up five photos which revealed part of it to be branded Inverness Conference & Banqueting Centre now. It’s undeniably Deco.

One of the flickr contributors complained that the local planning committee had vetoed new windows because they weren’t in keeping. The ones in the pictures don’t look original to me, though.

Four years ago I featured the University Café in Byres Road in this category. In December 2014 I spotted two more examples of the deco style in Glasgow cafés.

This is the frontage of the Central Café in Saltmarket. Absolutely typical thirties lettering:-

And this is the King’s Café in Elmbank Street. Again typical lettering but note here the two lines to the left of the K of King’s and the underlining of ing’s and afé. This underlining motif is repeated in red on the glass of the lower window. The blue and gold lettering further up – not shown to best advantage here due to the street furniture – not to mention the curved lines, is also delightful:-

Right next door to King’s Café on the corner of Elmbank and Sauchiehall Streets (and directly opposite the Beresford Hotel) is the Variety Bar. Not perhaps true deco lettering but close enough:-

Apart from the Beresford Hotel, Sauchiehall Street had a couple of other Art Deco buildings. This is a stitch of Marks and Spencer’s:-

And here is a close-up showing some detail:-

Dunnes Stores is on the corner of Sauchiehall and Cambridge Streets:-

Roof-line and window detail:-

There is a lovely finish to the highest part:-

The ABC cinema predates deco – originally built in 1877 before conversion to a cinema in 1929 – but is still a fine building. (Two photos stitched to get it all in):-

The Scottish cinemas website says it is closed. It seems to house a music venue now.

This was where I spent the better waking part of seven years of my life; four as an undergraduate (though there were only one lab per week and one lecture per day in 1st year; with an extra lecture and lab per week in 2nd) and three as a research student doing my Ph. D..

The building is in three main parts, oriented like three wheel spokes radiating out from a central hub. This is to reflect the fact that there were three main branches of Chemistry when it was built, Organic (chemistry of carbon compounds,) Inorganic (all other compounds,) and Physical (things to do with properties like melting point, boiling point, dipole moments, dielectric constants etc.)

There are two main entrances, situated between the central and the flanking blocks. This is one of them.

Here’s a close up on the above doorway so that you can see that officially it’s called The Institute Of Chemistry.

This is a (now disused I think) doorway on the end of a block.

This is part of one of the blocks.

Here’s a view from the rear of the building. As I recall the wooden bit at the top is a later addition.

Slightly to the left of this you can see up to the research labs.

Note the gas cylinders kept outside for safety reasons.

There’s a lovely curved end to the building’s frontage on University Avenue. This section is given over to medical research.

The railings separating this side of the building from University Avenue are nice too.

Editorial note:-
I have already featured the Glasgow buildings the Luma Factory, the Beresford Hotel, the Kelvin Court Flats and the Ascot Cinema under the title Scotland’s Art Deco Heritage since they are such iconic structures.

Edited to add an explanation of the designation, The University Chemistry Building:-
The venerable degree conferring institution which I attended titles itself The University, Glasgow. (When it was founded there was no other in the city, nor would there be for hundreds of years.)