News reaches us that Malcolm Fraser, he’s an architect (allegedly), will be in charge of building the Scottish Ballet’s new home at the Tramway in Glasgow.
Normally such things wouldn’t concern us since SB is a ballet company, obviously, and the less said about architects the better. However, a quick glance at the images of the proposed new building/abomination give both pause for thought and and strong desire to march Mr Fraser to a convenient bridge and shove him in the River Clyde.
Mr Fraser’s company are responsible for designing the new Dance City building, that was built from scratch so we can be charitable about that one, and the new Dance Base facility in Edinburgh which is hidden behind some lovely old buildings in the Scottish capital’s ‘old town’.
The new home for SB however is bolted onto the Tramway in Glasgow and appears to made from rejected yellow Lego™ bricks. It’s design also gives us cause to be concerned about the safety of Mr Fraser’s protractor (curvy thing for drawing, er……….. curves) because the building appears to devoid of anything but right angles and straight lines to say nothing of the fact it’s yellow!
If you’ve ever been to the Tramway, so called because it is literally an old tram garage, then you will know the place boasts the kind of rough and ready charm that we like in our contemporary spaces. It’s unpretentious, practical, big and it bloody works. Back in the day we saw many performances in there from DV8 and others that have slipped from our addled mind. Going there was always a simple experience unfettered by the cold, plastic nonsense of so many ‘new’ spaces.
In the hands of Fraser and his cronies however we get this;
“The route up into the new building from Tramway’s reception and social heart, ‘T3’ on Albert Drive, is articulated by daylight and terminates on a new internal court.”
It would appear that these guys have been taking a few tips from arty types in the now patented method of talking Complete Bollocks™
There are more than a few folks who are not at all happy about SB being re-housed inside the Tramway for many reasons other than the Lego™ Brick rebuild but that’s a story for another day.
If you would like to send Fraser and Co. your spare protractor then check out the link below. You may also want to suggest they stop putting windows on the internal walls of dance studios because it’s bloody annoying!
