Proposals to demolish the 1960’s-built Red Road tower blocks as a highlight the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony were recently reversed following widespread public criticism and community objections.
A proposal to broadcast live the dynamiting of five tower blocks at the 1960s Red Road estate as part of the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July has recently been dropped, following widespread criticism. The demolition of the estate, Glasgow first high-rise complex, is well under way, with two buildings already gone. The proposed broadcast to an international TV audience of millions was supposedly meant as an ‘unforgettable statement of how Glasgow is confidently embracing the future’.
The games’ organisers have now abandoned the idea, stating as reason ‘safety and security’ concerns.
The estate was built during the late 1950s and the 1960s, rehousing Glaswegians from other areas of the city, where urban ‘improvements’ were carried out through the large-scale demolition, so-called ‘slum clearances’, of the tenemental housing stock of the Victorian era. Ironically, the demolition of the replacement buildings after less than 50 years is now again considered as a form of sustainable urban regeneration,
An online petition against the demolition had been organised by Carolyn Leckie, a former MSP for the Scottish Socialist Party, who said in the Guardian that she was ‘relieved and extremely pleased’ by the U-turn of the event organisers. She had attacked the ‘disrespect displayed by blowing up homes for entertainment; the mixed and complex message of ‘regeneration’ by destruction; the insult to the families remaining’ and said the idea was ‘disuniting’.
Malcolm Fraser, a Scottish architect, was quoted in the same article: ‘What might the poor of the Commonwealth have thought of their rich hosts glorying in demolishing 11 thousand social homes?’
BBC news items on Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Red Road
Read a Migrant Voice blog of life in Red Road flats ‘Fun and Painful Memories’
