.png)
Exhibitions
Glasgow’s Glasgow
Ideogram
The idea for the exhibition began classically – a fusion of horizons between the ideal history-less city plan and the historical disorder of Glasgow. The first ideogram viewed the River Clyde as the Decumanus, High Street (at the city’s origins) as the Cardo. The ambition was launched with a squiggle.
​
Concept Diagrams
From the outset, the aspiration (perhaps temptation, even deceit) was to create a city within a city. But what would this analogous place be like? The project, initially called The Words and the Stones, integrated language (with its artefacts) and architecture (with its artefacts), within an exhibition landscape enlivened by live performance.
Refurbishing The Arches / Modelling the Inner Architecture
As the process of borrowing 3000+ Glasgow-related objects from around the world got underway – borrowing from Glasgow collections embargoed – a sufficiently large venue was found, refurbished and made environmentally suitable for display, even objects of the most fragile character.
From Vision to Reality
Strategic and detailed design – the inner architecture of the display arches in the hands of 10 invited architects and designers – honed the balance between form, content, atmosphere and interpretation. Midland Street was closed to create the analogous River Clyde as entrance. Visitors would ‘float’ into the show.
The start of the ‘street’ heading north; its conclusion to the south with the relationship between Scotland and England represented by a wheel. Every hour, through acting, singing, dancing, and spectacle, promenade theatre moved along this ‘street’ telling stories, creating shared, immersive experiences for visitors.
​
A piece of the Berlin Wall, stamped with Glasgow’s Mr Happy brand, chipped away like every other panel before the Fall, found its place in Glasgow’s Glasgow – the name finally adopted for the exhibition.
Installations
Guidebook, Education, Theatre, Visitor
A 90-page illustrated commentary on how the words and the stones of the city’s history had been chosen for display was available, as well as a book that set out an accurate chronology of the city’s history in the form of a novel. School curricula material and visits brought young people from throughout Scotland into the exhibition – where they could find interactive catalogues studded throughout the arches, and eat for free in the café-restaurant.
​
Evening theatre had its dedicated space. Offering an explanation to a visitor.
In one of the railway arches on Savignyplatz, a few doors along from Bücherbogen, squiggles, sketches, drawings, models and photographs traced the architectural evolution and construction of the Siemens piece in Berlin’s Treptow.
