Irish Victorian architects abroad

[ATTACH]7193[/ATTACH] Not a bad effort at all for Glasgow; the winner was a ‘Spanish-Renaissance’ red sandstone pile, recently refurbished, totally magnificent and a buiding genuinely esteemed throughout the city. Because it was built as part of a major ‘World Fair’-style exhibition (Glasgow was then one of the most prosperous cities in the world), it has two ‘principal’ entrances and is derided as being ‘back to front’, but that’s part of its charm! The image doesn’t do it justice.

The Lynn proposal for Paisley was actually built, and quite splendid it is too. The opposite facade to the one shown stands directly over the River Cart and is very dramatic. Thanks for the posts. (If you can imagine the Quebec image – ‘General View Front towards the River’ – with the river coming directly up under the plinth, that will give some idea.)

Here it is in all its splendour:

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What a building indeed. Though sandstone gives it a much less plastic appearance than it appears on paper – everything tends to meld into one with rusty Glaswegian sandstone.

© Neilston WebCam Photo Gallery

As with David Bryce’s NIB on O’Connell Street (in this case a Scottish Victorian architect abroad :))

Victorian classicism has a real cosmopolitan swagger to it doesn’t it. Even though it started much earlier, the pedantry of Palladianism really went out the window in favour of a do-it-yourself kit of classical elements to suit any requirement of the commercial world.
They have a level pomposity you just cannot achieve if you stick to the rulebook 🙂

Graham H: ‘rusty Glaswegian sandstone’ in Paisley -you would be lynched – it’s only 7 miles, but a whole different universe!