‘Raise Your Eyes to Our Heavens’ by Struan Kennedy

Unlike my last article ‘Dire Green Place’ where the focus was on a painterly representation of the street I would now like to turn my attention to the street itself. I wish this to be a direct, urgent connection with the architecture not a secondary, distanced representation of it. The street in question is Buchanan, one third of the so-called ‘golden Z’ of Glasgow’s city centre shopping.

I chose this one as opposed to the other two because of its Goldilocks’ length. It’s not too short and insubstantial but it isn’t too long and tiring like the others; with Argyle’s trail disappearing into the east and Sauchiehall snaking its way westward. It provides just the right amount of intrigue. This intrigue may lead one to consider these buildings with a perspective estranged from the norm. Too often we are involved only with the modern whimsy of ground floors, these buildings are more than just the Summer sale they happen to be housing.

So whether the swept opening of the Royal Concert Hall is the conclusion or the origin of your walk up or down the street there are plenty of examples of architecture worth lifting up your head for. These examples are wide in their variety but one of the most significant attributes, which unifies them all, is that they embody the Great British sense of understatement. Thusly the Nationwide building with its solid tower manages not to greedily gobble up the street. Amongst the larger buildings on Buchanan Street there is no struggle over our attention instead they mildly and modestly compliment each other. Just as the huge buildings successfully avoid impersonality the multitude of minor details are able to appear just as emotionally grand. These range from the cluster of mushrooming balconies that ripple around the corner of TGI Fridays, the subtle colours of the Puma shop’s decorative, layered brickwork to Princes’ Court and that peacock fantail radiating like a metallic sunburst. Understatement is best stated in two entrances both paragons of a diminished Imperial pride and decline in sheer effort. There is a building that is now, or was at some point, a post office easily viewed from Buchanan Street but technically on St. Vincent Street, which has a 6ft high Royal Mail insignia carved above its doorway. Further down in the concert hall direction to the right of T.M Lewin the shirt makers’ is the National Bank Chambers. This establishment decided to have its lettering written on a stone scroll looking more like a flowing motto or heraldic flag than simply a welcome sign. The only problem with these fantastic efforts of civil engineering is that they too require effort on the part of the viewer. The skyward cavity above Russell & Bromley can only be properly glimpsed if you rest against the adjacent building. I’m reminded of a line by Welsh poet William Henry Davies from his 1911 poem ‘Leisure’; ‘A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare’. However the fact is that, on occasion, we do have the time and it would be put to good use if, now and then, we did just that- if we stopped and we stared.

Only once we stop to consider our surroundings instead of pushing ourselves through them in the usual rush can we garner the delights of its unhurried form. The particular delights of Buchanan Street are first and foremost the inconspicuous host of surprises, which lurk under cornices, behind, under just around, on windowsills thin borders, fragile framing and traced edges. We can also appreciate a fusion of cultural references from Greek mythology, Classical Rome, Gothic, Romantic and Celtic. An example of such a surprise are the gold leafed niches at the entrance to the Argyle Arcade looking like Byzantine icons smoothly punched into the stone. These surprises last all the way to the Argyle end of the street with the fat copper dome expertly perched on the corner of Fraser’s and the HSBC building, creamy in colour and deceptively rich in detail. The HSBC whilst appearing as a mass of harsh Art Deco geometry is actually tattooed with refined patterning as if Gotham city has met Minas Tirth.

But really why should we remind ourselves of these sights? After all if every major town and city up and down our country has at least one Buchanan Street then doesn’t that relegate these sights as a national backdrop? If we are ever in any danger of thinking this way then the remedy may come not just from the startling aesthetic of what is made but the modesty of the maker. My point can be effectively put by recalling Richard Hawley’s comment on music during a BBC documentary ‘I’m In A Rock’n’Roll Band’. It was Hawley’s contention that ‘the beauty of it is I don’t think we need gods in heaven and I certainly don’t think we need gods on earth but what’s beautiful about music is the fact that it’s made by ordinary human beings just ordinary blokes from Runcorn or Cheshire or Glasgow’. In making this comparison between Hawley’s comment on music and my comment about architecture a paramount distinction needs to be made. This distinction acts as a great divide between the gods of ritual and ancient dogma and the secularised gods of reason and expression. To deny the ‘g word’ any other possible connotations would be to deny language’s capacity to evolve. A new and improved heaven belongs not to any one particular unit of converted souls but to all of us. It is a heaven down to earth, down on earth manufactured by deities in dungarees. This is precisely why the street should be examined; by keeping a continued gaze we continue keeping the faith. And we really should believe in these gods because we are surrounded by their labour- we have far more evidence of their miracles than any other god.

No doubt I’ve missed out plenty of details and the street deserves another walk down it. Which is why if you’re wandering down it yourself you’re likely to see me slowing my pace with my eyes raised to our heavens.