Monday, 18 January 2010

Red Road Flats, Glasgow

Since they're not going to be with us much longer, I'm writing a short post about the Red Road Flats in Glasgow - a group of eight high-rise social housing blocks in the north of the city. I used to live just over a mile away from them and it will be strange when they are gone since they have been such a feature of the city's skyline for more than 40 years. There's some really interesting material on the flats on this website, set up specially to document their demolition.

Just to be more precise about where they are, here's a Google streetview:


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There's also a series of Quicktime panoramas here (with further links on the right of this page). There's also a gritty/disturbing 2006 film of the same name which is set there. There are hundreds of other potential links, but the final one here is from a short BBC film of the area. The schedule for demolition is a little unclear, but the first block is supposed to be toppled in spring 2010.

Finally, I edited one of my very own Red Road photos (taken in 2005) to see what the skyline will look like from Petershill Road once they are all gone (the picture below is a small animated gif).