ABSTRACT

Glasgow's main urban theme is deindustrialisation. The city lost most of its economic base during the 1970s. Simultaneously, although not causally related, the city engaged in massive tabula rasa renewal programmes similar to those in Berlin but far more extensive in relation to the city's overall size. Glasgow's symbolic reconstruction projects heralded a crucial period when the city managed to halt the downward spiral of deindustrialisation and economic decline and reinvented itself as a post-industrial centre of culture and services. In Glasgow the relationship between post-industrial economy and new tenement design was particularly strong, as economic decline made the vision of a functionalist industrial city. Perhaps the most symbolic inner-city redevelopment in Glasgow was the Crown Street Regeneration Project. It is often referred to as New Gorbals, although technically the New Gorbals also include the adjacent regeneration projects to the east, which are also situated in the Gorbals neighbourhood and were carried out in the 2000s.