Mick Hartley

Photographer Jürgen Schadeberg in the Gorbals during its redevelopment in the late Sixties:

[Photos: Jürgen Schadeberg]

It was a classic case of Sixties town planning gone wrong: good intentions but terrible implementation, as the people of the Gorbals slums were rehoused in poorly built concrete towers, often in god-forsaken new towns miles away from the old neighbourhood:

As with London and other major cities, in the post-war planning of the 1950s Glasgow Corporation decided to demolish many inner districts including Gorbals and Huchesontown, with families being dispersed to new outlying housing estates such as Castlemilk, in overspill agreements with New Towns such as East Kilbride, and others rehoused within the area but in huge concrete multi-storey towers. With its grid network of tenements facing directly onto the street, the neighbouring Govanhill district to the south (whose residents observed the demolition/modernisation in nearby areas such as the Gorbals and Pollokshaws with suspicion and successfully opposed the same fate befalling their homes, although they faced other challenges to improve their living conditions) offers some reminder of how the district used to look prior to its redevelopment. From the late 1990s, terraces of tenements in the modern style started to return and in the 21st century most of the concrete tower blocks have been demolished.

Glasgow Corporation's replacement of old, outdated and crowded housing with new high-rise towers of social housing in the 1960s greatly improved conditions but had social consequences. Lack of awareness of the effects of concentrating families resulted in poor design, and the low-quality construction of the concrete, 20-storey flats led to innumerable social and health problems among the residents. Many of the blocks developed mould and structural problems. Their designs prevented residents from visually controlling their internal and external spaces, adding to issues of social dysfunction. The Queen Elizabeth Square flats, designed by Sir Basil Spence, were demolished in 1993 to make way for a new generation of housing development.