Sunday 3 June 2012

Red Road Demolition

A couple of years ago I blogged on the Red Road Flats in Glasgow and their imminent destruction. It wasn't quite as imminent as I thought but it now appears that next Sunday, 10th June 2012 153-213 Petershill Drive will be demolished. As someone with an interest in planning, urbanism, architecture and Glasgow this is a significant event because it represents the end of an era, and in particular the end of the great public high-rise housing experiment that Glasgow embraced. 


153-213 Petershill Drive

The delay in getting to this point is related to the process of moving the asbestos from the buildings, which you can see in this fascinating time-lapse video...


The demolition story is documented on Safedem's Red Road Demolition website and the demolition itself can be viewed live there next Sunday. I'm sure they'll also have lots of video coverage of the event soon after, as they normally do. You can find more details about the original project and architect on these pages.

For me, the most interesting and important aspect of Red Road are the stories told by people who lived there, which are captured on the Red Road Flats website.