Another day in Glasgow. Although today I stayed in the city centre and east side areas.

Continuing my pursuit of Chas Mackintosh designs, I started at The Lighthouse — it used to be the location of the Glasgow Herald newspaper (his first public commission) but is currently Scotland’s centre for design and architecture. A fitting place to showcase one of their favorite local architects. The building has an exhibit dedicated to Mackintosh but also, if you’re willing to walk up some curvy stairs, there are views of the city. Btw these stairs are suspended in the tower — quite the feat of engineering. But they felt really solid and despite my fear of heights I was fine taking them.

Of course I really have no idea what I’m looking at but it’s a good way to see the variety in architecture in this city.

I next went to George Square which has statues all around but for the life of me, I couldn’t find a statue of King George himself. I just googled it and in fact there isn’t one. Pretty amusing though they’re on George St so presumably that’s where the name came from. The Glasgow City Chambers is the huge Victorian bldg in the square. They do city council business there so tours are limited but it’s a beautiful building. Obviously influenced by Italian styles as there’s a lot of marble, mosaics, and murals. Next I headed east to the Glasgow Cathedral, also known as St Mungo’s cathedral and St Kentigern’s.

On the way I passed another Glasgow university (University of Strathclyde), which considering how much I featured U of G yesterday — I just thought I had to give some time to today. It looks much more modern. And there’s a Montrose Street right in the area, which I had to take a picture of — doesn’t look much like my Montrose in Chicago!

The cathedral is an old (1100s) gothic structure that somehow survived the Scottish Reformation and is today Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). St Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow (aka St Kentigern — not sure how you have patron saints when you aren’t Catholic but maybe I just don’t understand Protestants) established a church on the site. Also there’s a downstairs that’s older than the church on top that supposedly held St Mungo’s remains. You can’t see the stained glsss well in those photos — though they’re relatively new, compared to the church. But here’s a better photo. Also cool is a huge cemetery — called the necropolis — behind the cathedral. Apparently if you were anyone in Glasgow, you were buried here. Mostly merchants and engineers as far as I could tell. Also writers and craftsmen. And about all the street names I’ve seen in the centre (Buchanan, Mitchell, Cochrane, Hutcheson — and lots of famous Glaswegian names like Burns, Stewarts, and all kinds of Macs…). Anyway it was interesting and the sun actually popped out a few times! (Though it also misted intermittently.)It was interesting that many monuments were in great shape (even if from the 1800s) but some were falling over. I wonder if people are paying to take care of them into perpetuity — and those who no longer have family, friends, or funds to do so end up falling apart?Hard to say ..?? Definitely it was only the well-to-do who were buried here. Regardless, it was well thought out… they had a road and a “bridge of sighs” that they said connected the living and the dead… Anyway not to get morbid but the place was quite fascinating — there were several groups taking professional-looking photos there.

It started raining heavily as I was leaving and I escaped by visiting the Provand’s Lordship (oldest house in Glasgow) and the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life across the street. Both are free and were interesting but I didn’t take any photos. I guess I’m not as into taking interiors of small buildings. (The Provand’s Lordship has particularly low ceilings and small doors. People were considerably smaller back then — Luca would’ve had to duck quite a bit!)

On my way back to the center I saw a bunch of huge murals that are apparently a new thing in Glasgow. Particularly in the less posh areas of town (the east side). I was intrigued. And amused by the slogan on the side of the building in the second shot. Apparently the University of Strathclyde is “the place of useful learning” — makes me wonder what they teach??! Oh just looked it up. The founder wanted them to focus on the natural sciences.

There are definitely differences between the east and west sides yet the population is only about 600K (in the city — about double for the greater Glasgow area). Oh well. I’m falling asleep as I type this so I’ll continue with Glasgow musings later!