You know, I'm absolutely sick of reading about all these unknown architects crying into their tea about the closure of the Lighthouse in Glasgow. I mean who has heard of most of them - even the guys who put the current shambles together are hardly household names (Park and Page). In fact they are completely unknown. You don't hear of real architects like Keppies or Archial complaining about it. Actually, how many people have heard of the Lighthouse?
I must admit to a bit of bias here. I've only been to the Lighthouse once - for the Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative awards - which we did not get and which was a very humiliating experience which I have found hard to forget (see my previous post: Toffs win new award). So I don't have great memories of the place. To be honest, I'd never heard of it before and when we went there to pick up the award, it seemed to be a bit of a holiday camp with people just hanging around doing nothing. I came across this picture on the web of the cafe - deserted! Just like it was when I was there.
You know, one thing I would say is that behind most celebrated 'works of architecture' there is always a human tragedy. It really isn't right that so many fine young people, including some very attractive young ladies, have had to lose their jobs because of the incompetence of management, architects and government in setting up what I gather is some sort of an elitist enclave for design that no one is interested in. On my only visit there, I felt humiliated and excluded - they made me feel like a country bumpkin. I won't forget that - and I won't miss the Lighthouse.
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