Wednesday 1st February 2017 | 7pm | 54 Bell Street
Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city, its streets a constant frenetic bustle of activity. But rarely do its residents take the time to stop and look up at the extraordinary architectural heritage all around. Glasgow’s ‘no mean city’ image belies this world-class architectural detail, comprising of stunning sculpture, ornament, friezes, gables and decoration, the vast majority of which are hidden in plain sight above eye level.
Adrian Searle will discuss his book ‘Look Up Glasgow’, created with specialist architectural photographer David Barbour and bringing together in one volume a fabulous record of the hidden jewels of ‘the second city of the Empire’ with poetry from six of Scotland’s leading poets. Nicolas Boyes will then talk to us about the conservation and restoration of this sculptural detail, drawing on his work for Glasgow School of Art, Rosslyn Chapel and the House of Falkland Estate among others.
Adrian Searle studied History at the University of Edinburgh and Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. He is founding co-editor of Gutter, Scotland’s leading literary magazine. He has edited a number of anthologies of new writing including The Hope That Kills Us: An anthology of Scottish football fiction (Freight, 2002) and The Knuckle End: A meaty collection of new Scottish writing (Freight, 2004). He co-authored 101 Uses of a Dead Kindle (Freight, 2012) with the artist Judith Hastie, a BA top five Christmas Book of the Year 2012 and winner of two Scottish Design Awards in 2013. Adrian and Judith published If Dogs Could Swear in October 2013. Adrian co-authored Look Up Glasgow with David Barbour in 2013, followed by Look Up Edinburgh and Look Up London, both published in 2014. Most recently, Adrian again teamed up with Judith Hastie to produce So You Think You Know Scotland (2015) and with illustrator Oli Ninnis on Catology (2016). He is Publisher at Freight Books, Scottish Publisher of the Year 2015-16.
Nicolas Boyes is an accredited conservator restorer with over 20 years’ experience in the conservation of historically important buildings, monuments and sculpture. Recently he has worked on major conservation projects such as the Temple of Decision in Fife, a nineteenth century building, part of the House of Falkland Estate, needing urgent works to reverse natural deterioration to the masonry structure. From 2009-2013 Nic acted as Director of Conservation Works to Rosslyn Chapel in Edinburgh where he led a team of 20 people to design and deliver a programme of conservation works to the exterior and interior of the building. Nic has also worked on the Glasgow School of Art following the devastating fire in 2014 to undertake essential conservation recording and remedial works to retain and repair as much of the building as possible.
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