The Lighthouse (Glasgow)

I LOVE the Lighthouse - and now it's FREE on a Saturday! Fantastic! But this is a review, so I need to tell you why it floats my boat. Well, first off I love the deisgn. As a museum of architecture and design it had to be good - and it has a lovely, airy feel. A mash-up of a new building and an existing one, with original windows and exposed brick on display inside. There is a small gift shop dowstairs stocking a well priced range of quirky gifts (if you can bear to part with them) and cards and a larger shop upstairs selling some more high-end items (fancy a little Marimekko fabric, anyone?) Upstairs there are two galleries with ever-changing ...  Read the complete review

There can be few visitors to Glasgow who haven’t heard of one of it’s famous sons, the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, or glimpsed his trademark geometric designs and stylised flowers which can be seen in places such as the famous Willow Tea Rooms; the Glasgow School of Art and Scotland Street School, to name but three. On a recent visit to Glasgow, I discovered another Mackintosh ‘gem’, quite by chance. Staying overnight in a Glasgow hotel, and flicking through some of the tourist literature in the foyer, I found a brochure about ‘The Lighthouse’, describing it as Scotland’s Centre for Architecture, Design and the City and, on reading further, I ...  Read the complete review