Representing the city: Glasgow City of Architecture and Design 1999 in context

Abstract

The sociological issue addressed in this thesis is the assessment of recent work carried out in relation to questions of architectural and urban transitions. Glasgow’s City of Architecture and Design festival is used as a test case to illustrate and apply the emerging concerns with the role of architecture and design culture in managing and driving urban change. It confirms the current applicability of some distinct theoretical positions drawn from studies of a range of cities. It suggests sociologists ought to be paying more attention to Glasgow as it exemplifies some main tendencies identifying it as a vanguard culture city developing a three dimensional culture of urban space. Writing with a theoretical and empirical focus on the experience of the ‘city of culture’, the thesis works through principal themes to clarify the range of factors driving change in the city of Glasgow. I compare the city’s international exhibitions and modern architectural character to illustrate how centralised and flamboyant observations at festival sites, and a study of some exemplary productions of the festival in relation to the ongoing transformations of urban experience in the central city. The thesis provides a sustained sociological portrait of the city’s architectural and design culture and points to specific questions concerned with the nature of the recolonisation of the valorised central city