The Audi Centre of Excellence is a 5-acre (20,000 m²) retail venue in Glasgow, Scotland, for Audi-brand products.
To date, it is the largest in the world. The Centre includes space for sales and service, an outdoor off-road test track, cafés, a Nursery, a restaurant, a museum, an art gallery, and conference facilities. It will also serve as an Audi Academy training facility for Audi employees in the United Kingdom. The Centre cost 15 million GBP, and was planned to open on 2004-10-11.
Modern buildings in Glasgow include the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, and along the banks of the Clyde are the Glasgow Science Centre and the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, whose Clyde Auditorium was designed by Sir Norman Foster, and is affectionately known as the “Armadillo”. Zaha Hadid won a competition to design the new Museum of Transport, which will move to the waterfront.[5]
Glasgow’s impressive historical and modern architectural traditions were celebrated in 1999 when the city was designated UK City of Architecture and Design,[6] winning the accolade over Liverpool and Edinburgh.[7]
Many important historicist churches were built in Victorian Glasgow, including the St. Vincent Street Church and the Romanesque Revival Garnethill Synagogue.
Another architect who had an enduring impact on the city’s appearance was Alexander Thomson (1817-1875). Thomson produced a distinctive style of architecture based on fundamentalist classicism that gave him the nickname “Greek”. Examples of Thomson’s work can be found over the city,[2] with notable examples including the Holmwood House villa and St. Vincent Street Church.
The buildings reflect the wealth and self confidence of the residents of the “Second City of the Empire”. Glasgow generated immense wealth from trade and the industries that developed from the Industrial Revolution. The shipyards, marine engineering, steel making, and heavy industry all contributed to the growth of the city. At one time the expression “Clydebuilt” was synonymous with quality and engineering excellence.[3] The Templeton’s carpet factory on Glasgow Green was designed to resemble the Doge’s Palace in Venice and epitomises Glaswegians’ desire to demonstrate architectural opulence during this era.[4]Many of the city’s most impressive buildings were built with red or blond sandstone, but during the industrial era those colours disappeared under a pervasive black layer of soot and pollutants from the furnaces, until the Clean Air Act was introduced in 1956. In recent years many of these buildings have been cleaned and restored to their original appearance.
The city is notable for architecture designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). Mackintosh was an architect and designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and the main exponent of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom, designing numerous noted Glasgow buildings such as the Glasgow School of Art, Willow Tearooms and the Scotland Street School. A hidden gem of Glasgow, also designed by Mackintosh, is the Queen’s Cross Church, the only church by the renowned artist to be built.[1]
The city of Glasgow, Scotland, has a distinct architecture, and is particularly noted for its 19th-century Victorian architecture, and the early 20th-century “Glasgow Style”, as developed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Very little of medieval Glasgow remains, the two main landmarks from this period being the 15th century Provand’s Lordship and 13th century St. Mungo’s Cathedral. The vast majority of the city as seen today dates from the 19th century. As a result, Glasgow has an impressive heritage of Victorian architecture: the Glasgow City Chambers; the main building of the University of Glasgow, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott; and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, designed by Sir John W. Simpson are outstanding examples.
Following the local government boundary changes in 1996 and the creation of unitary councils in Scotland, replacing the former regional and district councils, the Greater Glasgow Settlement Area or Urban Area was created for the 2001 Census from groups of neighboring urban postcodes grouped so that each group of postcode unit contains at least a given number of addresses per unit area, and the group contains at least 500 residents.
In 1973, the Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Executive was created to take over control of Glasgow Corporation Transport (which included the Glasgow Subway). Following local government reorganisation in 1975, control subsequently passed to Strathclyde Regional Council. The former PTE is now the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, within Transport Scotland.
The Glasgow conurbation is served by the largest urban rail network in the UK outside of London,[7] with 186 rail stations in the Greater Glasgow area. The city is served by the only metro system in Scotland, the Glasgow Subway; and by two international airports, Glasgow Prestwick International Airport[8] and Glasgow International Airport.[9]
Greater Glasgow is the conurbation that includes and surrounds the city of Glasgow in the west of Scotland. It has a population of 1,199,629 at the 2001 census[2] making it the largest urban area in Scotland and the fifth largest in the United Kingdom.[3]
In addition to the conurbation, Greater Glasgow is used to mean the general area around the city, with various definitions being in use.
The City of Glasgow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries grew to having a population of over one million people and was the third city in Europe to reach one million, after London and Paris. [4] The official population stayed well over one million for more than 50 years.[5] However, in the 1960s large-scale relocation to new towns in the suburban area of the city and many boundary changes since then have reduced the population of the core City of Glasgow council area to 580,690 (August 2007).[6]
With the announcement that the Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow in 2014, further developments are underway. A proposed stadium, Scotland’s National Arena, will be a 12,500-seat arena at SECC. It will sustain 1,400 jobs and continue to attract visitors to the city long after the games are over. Further hotel accommodation is also required to handle the growth in tourism that is anticipated for the city and there is a commitment to complete key transport infrastructure projects in the area in time for the games.
As of 2008, work has also begun on the Riverside Museum project, which will be completed in 2011. Architect Zaha Hadid has designed a landmark building which will house Glasgow’s transport collection.