The Crystal Palace in Glasgow is an architectural landmark characterized by its iron and glass construction. Designed by John Baird and built between eighteen fifty-five and eighteen fifty-six, the building draws inspiration from the…
Style Mile Victorian Arcades
We'll trace Glasgow's famous pedestrian center to admire the spectacular glass-roofed shopping arcades and historic cast-iron department stores of the industrial golden age.
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1. The Crystal Palace
2. Ca'd'Oro Building
The Ca'd'Oro Building stands on the corner of Union and Gordon Streets, easily identified by the delicate, lacy cast-iron facade that seems surprisingly open for a stone-heavy city. Architect John Honeyman designed this structure in…
3. Frasers
Frasers on Buchanan Street is defined by a grand five-storey galleried atrium, illuminated from above by a glass roof that floods the interior with daylight. This Category A-listed building traces its origins to eighteen forty-nine, when…
4. Argyll Arcade
The Argyll Arcade is a covered shopping passage recognized by its ornate cast-iron and glass hammerbeam roof, which runs in an L-shaped path between Argyle Street and Buchanan Street. Built in eighteen twenty-seven, it remains one of…
5. Sloans
Sloans is recognizable by its cobbled courtyard, which sits tucked away behind an entrance off the ornate Argyll Arcade. This three-storey building has operated since seventeen ninety-seven, beginning its life as a coffee house known as…
6. Princes Square
Princes Square is defined by its exterior of yellow sandstone, which dates back to eighteen forty-one when it was built as a merchant square featuring an open courtyard and stables. Designed by the architect John Baird, the building was…
7. Royal Exchange Square
Royal Exchange Square is defined by the imposing, neo-classical building at its heart, which features a grand portico of Corinthian columns. Built in seventeen seventy-eight as a private mansion for William Cunninghame, a wealthy tobacco…
8. Merchant Square
Merchant Square is recognizable by its expansive, indoor cobbled courtyard, a seven-hundred-and-seven square meter space where the city’s weather is kept at bay beneath a high roof. Located at seventy-one Albion Street, this sheltered area…