LOOK closely around Glasgow and you may spot one of the city’s few remaining Art Deco treasures.
On Sauchiehall Street, the towering Beresford Hotel has been a landmark since it opened in 1938, originally built to provide accommodation for people attending the 1938 Empire Exhibition.
Noted for its Art Deco/Streamline Moderne architecture it was designed by owner and managing director William Beresford Inglis.
During the Second World War, the glamorous, 10-storey building was a favourite of American GIs, spending time in and around the city.
The Beresford Hotel, 1952 Pic: Glasgow Times
Our picture was taken in 1952. The Beresford remained a hotel until 1964, when it was bought by the Royal College of Science and Technology (the soon-to-be University of Strathclyde) and turned into student accommodation.
Renamed the Baird Hall of Residence, it was opened by Margaret Baird, the widow of television inventor John Logie Baird Now it is home to flats.
Like the Beresford, the headquarters of the British Luma Co-operative Lamp company on Shieldhall Road, was built in 1938 to coincide with Glasgow’s hosting of the British Empire Exhibition. It is a stunning city landmark, thanks to its 84ft glass tower. Also like the Beresford, it is now home to flats, having once been a caravan company showroom.
The O2 Academy, once the New Bedford Cinema
Music fans will know the New Bedford Cinema as the O2 Academy, but it’s one of the few Art Deco buildings left still ostensibly fulfilling its original purpose – to entertain the people of Glasgow. Originally opened in 1921 and designed by Lennox and McMath, it was a picture house and then a bingo hall until it closed in the 1990s.
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Drinkers out Shettleston Road way will no doubt be familiar with the Gartocher Bar. This is how it looked in 1937 when architect William Ross created it for William Ralston on the site of the old Barrowman’s pub. The beautiful Art Deco stained glass windows were much-admired.
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