The Red Road flats in Glasgow, Scotland were the tallest in Europe when they were built, at 32 stories high. They are quite a spectacle. When clumped together like this and of that kind of height they are really quite impressive. But they are now universally regarded as very unpleasant places to live.
The 50s saw Glasgow launch the biggest comprehensive development scheme ever seen in the UK. Glasgow ran out of building land within its boundaries, the City decided that the only way was up.
Seduced by the Modernist glamour of prestige tower blocks and pressed into urgent action by the continuing housing crisis, Glasgow built more high rise flats than any other city in Europe, including the communist bloc.
The first residents were welcomed in 1969, and the blocks were completed in the summer of 1971. Currently these flats are where a fair number of asylum seekers from many countries around the world are housed, in amoungst the local population.
Last week, March, the residents of block 153 were told that their block would be the first to come down, within ten years.
