Legend:
Long, long ago there was a time in Britain, when if you were not born into Royalty, or Aristocracy or didn’t have money to build stately mansions, you could still get your kicks out of being in fancy-ass places as long as you can work yourself into a high placed government job. Like becoming a Provost (Scots for Mayor). You just go down to the King and go ‘Uh… boss, we need a new office to work from. Here’s the plan. We gotta build it from marble, make it as ornamental as possible and for good measure, include an elaborate style fit for a mini-palace. Let’s make it a wannabe palace. Howzzat?!
And the king said, ‘Sure! We got plenty of dough coming from the colonies anyway.. no place in the treasury to put it all in. Besides, who wants to be called Unca Scrooge, anyway? Go on. You can have your money to splurge on the Parliament House’. And thus was built the Glasgow City Chambers.
Ok.. I totally made that up and there might be a few brickbats flying in my direction. But seriously, while the architecture itself is commendable, which the Council has no doubt gone about gloating in a 10-page brochure, the purpose and reason for such expenditure is absolutely ridiculous! Especially when so much money must go into its maintenance these days too!
Whether its the Marble Lion at the foot of the elaborate marble staircase, or the councillor's chamber, or the fit-for-a-king Lord Provost's office, or the defintely, unnecessarily super ornamental alabaster fireplace in the Satinwood Salon, the banqueting Hall with Cuban wall panels or the Upper Gallery, it all speaks of an extragavance on the scale of 'No bread to eat? Feed them cake' sort of abusdity! But the prize for the extravagance actually goes to The Banqueting Hall. A mammoth of a hall during the desciption of which, the tourist guide's chest was puffing so much with pride that I was almost afraid he would either burst or would float off into the ceiling and get stuck like a helium balloon!
And when he gloated about all the effort and the money that went into cleaning of the 3 massive chandeliers (or Electroliers as he called it) in the ‘Golden Room’, I was like ‘Aha.. let one more person mention the word ‘recession’ in this country and I’ll know just what to say’!
Well.. atleast Glasgow will have the Gold-plated silver mace to pawn if UK recessess a-la Greece.
All said and done, there is one thing though. Will admit that I was impressed with the Council Chamber. At the end of the day, this was the primary purpose for which the building was proposed. It was suitably impressive without being stupidly extravagant!
One word for the Glasgow City Chambers! Meh!
Long, long ago there was a time in Britain, when if you were not born into Royalty, or Aristocracy or didn’t have money to build stately mansions, you could still get your kicks out of being in fancy-ass places as long as you can work yourself into a high placed government job. Like becoming a Provost (Scots for Mayor). You just go down to the King and go ‘Uh… boss, we need a new office to work from. Here’s the plan. We gotta build it from marble, make it as ornamental as possible and for good measure, include an elaborate style fit for a mini-palace. Let’s make it a wannabe palace. Howzzat?!
And the king said, ‘Sure! We got plenty of dough coming from the colonies anyway.. no place in the treasury to put it all in. Besides, who wants to be called Unca Scrooge, anyway? Go on. You can have your money to splurge on the Parliament House’. And thus was built the Glasgow City Chambers.
Ok.. I totally made that up and there might be a few brickbats flying in my direction. But seriously, while the architecture itself is commendable, which the Council has no doubt gone about gloating in a 10-page brochure, the purpose and reason for such expenditure is absolutely ridiculous! Especially when so much money must go into its maintenance these days too!
Whether its the Marble Lion at the foot of the elaborate marble staircase, or the councillor's chamber, or the fit-for-a-king Lord Provost's office, or the defintely, unnecessarily super ornamental alabaster fireplace in the Satinwood Salon, the banqueting Hall with Cuban wall panels or the Upper Gallery, it all speaks of an extragavance on the scale of 'No bread to eat? Feed them cake' sort of abusdity! But the prize for the extravagance actually goes to The Banqueting Hall. A mammoth of a hall during the desciption of which, the tourist guide's chest was puffing so much with pride that I was almost afraid he would either burst or would float off into the ceiling and get stuck like a helium balloon!
And when he gloated about all the effort and the money that went into cleaning of the 3 massive chandeliers (or Electroliers as he called it) in the ‘Golden Room’, I was like ‘Aha.. let one more person mention the word ‘recession’ in this country and I’ll know just what to say’!
Well.. atleast Glasgow will have the Gold-plated silver mace to pawn if UK recessess a-la Greece.
All said and done, there is one thing though. Will admit that I was impressed with the Council Chamber. At the end of the day, this was the primary purpose for which the building was proposed. It was suitably impressive without being stupidly extravagant!
One word for the Glasgow City Chambers! Meh!
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