Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Looking south over Garnethill Park

“A group of us got together to see what we could do, and John Kraska’s idea was, “let’s do something really outstanding.” Now this was the beginning of Garnethill coming alive, and from there all these things have happened, the Garnethill Park, the community hall, the buildings being renovated. It’s a proud boast that the murals were the beginning of the regeneration of Garnethill." (Interview by art critic/journalist Robert Dawson Scott on STV’s arts program "Don’t Look Down", 1995.)

Betty Brown, MBE. (Late Chairperson of Garnethill Community Council)

The major event that turned Garnethill's fortune was the creation of "The Garnethill Exhibition" in 1976, in Glasgow's principal and newly set up arts venue, the Third Eye Centre, on the area's southern Sauchiehall Street boundary. A steering group, formed to draw up the Community Council's aims and constitution, was invited by local artists to join the year-long research, planning, and making of the exhibition.

Enthusiastically encouraged by Third Eye's first Director, the playwright Tom McGrath, and co-ordinator Penny Richardson, hundreds of people and many agencies contributed to the exploration and production of that extensive multi-media exhibition.

Within a month the event drew in 17,000 visitors. Garnethill was back on the map as residents asserted the right of their community to exist. In the process the makers developed knowledge, contacts, and organising skills.

That first buoyant presentation was followed by a stream of exhibitions, events, protests, history and documentary projects, festivals, planning & social initiatives, both within and without.

The fruitful exchange with Third Eye Centre continued with its next director, Chris Carrell.

The park and murals in 1979 - photo © copyright J. Kraska

Garnethill Mosaic Mural - Huge Slightly Mobile Jigsaw

Large mosaic sections of vitreous glass and ceramic tessserae were previously prepared in the studio, each tessera being laid face up, pressed into large beds of damp sand, cut and placed to interpret the chosen design. This method is sometimes known as the 'inverse reverse' process. When each large panel was fully laid, layers of scrim (a light open weave fabric) were applied to the surface with hot glue size, and then the mosaic 'sheet' was cut into approximately one square ft. interlocking pieces, plotted onto a chart, and eventually transported to the wall, and pressed into wet cement, like a huge slightly mobile jigsaw. When the cement was set, the scrim was removed by soaking it with water, and the spaces between the tesserae were filled with cement grout.

There were few experts at hand to advise on technical methodology - the methods were researched mainly from arts and crafts textbooks, and tested by trial. In like fashion the detailed roundels of the pathway were pre-cast in the studio each being made by a different artist. In addition to donated terrazzo flooring off-cuts, glass and ceramic tesserae, ceramic tiles, slate and marble salvaged from local buildings being demolished were used in the path. Sadly, several of these emblematic roundel designs were lost when six metres of the path was destroyed in 1991. The mosaic work had to be defended from other threats to its integrity when various plans were submitted to the city council to change "the box factory" building behind the mosaic wall. A persistent campaign led by the artists ensured that the integrity of the mural was largely safeguarded.

Mosaic mural and painted gable mural - part of the Garnethill Mural Project, 1978/79 - photo: 1978: © copyright J. Kraska

Mosaic Tradition, Lineage, and Inspiration

Despite its distinctively different appearance from everything that surrounded it in the local built environment, the use of mosaic was rooted in vernacular forms of applied design found in the surrounding area, including; entrance closes and stair landings of some tenement buildings; the interior of the nearby St Aloysius church; entrances to several local shops from the late Victorian period; and in later new building frontages (e.g. Fleming House) using sheet mosaic. There are mosaic works within Glasgow School of Art, and more recent mosaics by various contemporary artists can be found in the Glasgow Film Theatre (by Todd Garner), and applied to new or renovated buildings in Buccleuch Street and Hill Street (Tommy Lydon's plaque on the former Beatson building). Jane Sutherland developed an ambitious large scale mosaic proposal for the viewpoint at the west end of Hill Street, described by Marian Pallister in The Herald in 1999. And, if you walk from Garnethill down to George Square, and step into the ornate grandeur of Glasgow's City Chambers, you'll find yourself standing on a fine ceramic mosaic floor.

That traditional decorative art form, with such ancient roots, was all but forgotten by the late 1970's. Laying-up mosaic designs in the workshop demands many hours bowed over the work, choosing, cutting, placing. The contemplative stance is inherent in the word mosaic itself, originating in the Greek mousa, the Muse, source of divine inspiration in ancient mythology. In the Glasgow School of Art, the department of Stained Glass and Mosaic ended with the death of Alfredo Avella, and the retiral of Walter Pritchard and his successor George Garson. The link was broken but the inspiration remained. As an art student in the late sixties, John Kraska recalls watching Walter Pritchard take handfuls of shimmering glass tesserae and hurl them in multi-coloured cascades onto a huge paper cartoon laid out on the floor of his studio in the Haldane Building - his first attempts to ground his broadly sketched out design for a church wall with the hard realities of the alluring yet demanding task ahead - the placement and fixing of thousands of pieces of mosaic.

Kraska's first mosaic project was the creation of large mosaic panels and archways in 'smalti' and 'vitmos' Italian glass tesserae, using the 'direct method'. These were incorporated into his tiled frontage design for the Gandhi Restaurant in Sauchiehall Street (undertaken in 1976, through his art and design company, Artifactory (GLW) Ltd).

The project artists worked with local children to produce drawings and paintings that became the sources for the final design of the mosaic wall. The designs for each of the three murals in the project were produced by quite different routes. Tommy Lydon's design for the painted gable wall overlooking the park site was selected from an exhibition of many different designs by project artists exhibited in the 'Community Shop', while the now lost Hill Street/Scott Street gable was designed by John Kraska.

Detail of the newly completed mosaic mural - part of the Garnethill Mural Project. photo: 1978 © copyright J. Kraska

International Year of the Child

Following an invitation by UNESCO to provide details of the project, the mosaic mural was dedicated, in a special ceremony, to UNESCO's International Year of the Child, and Garnethill's first festival within living memory, organised from within the community, marked the completion of the murals. An observer, the architect Peter Mcgurn said, "I turned the corner, and.... it was like something out of a Fellini film!".

During that first exultant masked festival and procession, featuring amongst others - Ronnie Brown's Night Moves Disco, Pete Simpson's Leaping Tiger Group, Theatre about Glasgow, Peter Capaldi's Dreamboys, and a salvation Army band - a dedication service was held representing four local churches, to "accept and hallow these murals, the work of human hands. We dedicate them to all the children of the World".

The Evolution of the Garnethill Park

The earliest buildings on the site of the Garnethill Park were several villas with large gardens, built around 1800. The villas were largely replaced in the mid 19th century by 3/4-storey domestic tenement buildings, many of which in turn were cleared during the1960's as adverse civic planning policies began to bite. The upper two thirds of the site then was turned into a rudimentary football pitch, steeply sloping, aligned east/west - which slowly transformed as Scotland's famed rainfall formed streams and tributaries, gouging out valleys in its ash surface.

In tandem with the Garnethill Mural Project initiative, the City Council, lobbied by the Community Council, built a park and play area with a level, fenced, 5-a-side red blaes football pitch in 1978/79, along with swings, trees and basic landscaping. Imposing but gradually decaying tenements remained on the eastern boundary until the later 1980's.

In 1990, the German environmental artist Dieter Magnus, in association with the Goethe Insitut in Glasgow, prepared the present Garnethill Park designs. Goethe Institute director (the late) Joachim Buhler, and his assistant Marlies Pfeifer, together with the artist, worked with civic and community agencies to bring about a very significant and unique contribution to Glasgow's Cultural Capital of Europe initiative.

Garnethill Park showing sandstone amphitheatre, performance areas, and water courses. photo May 2007: © copyright J. Kraska

"Together with City Council officials we visited 10 sites in the city with the view of choosing one for the creation of a new play park. The Goethe-Institut had committed itself to commission me with the design for this park as part of its contribution to Glasgow 1990. The last site we visited was a run-down gap site which included a small kick-about area and also the mosaic, created by yourself, at one side. I realised right away that this site would lend itself to more than a conventional play park for children. I envisaged a water flow running down the slope, and a recreational area for people of all ages. The realisation of my artistic overall conception took nearly two years, and Joachim Buhler's idea to call the park Garnethill Park was taken up".

"It was an intensive experience for myself and all involved, and the cooperation with the Garnethill community, the Parks Department, the building contractors, the Festival Office and the Goethe-Institut was always characterised by mutual trust and respect, leading to many lasting friendships. It will always be considered a very special Scottish-German pilot project, a project which led to a new neighbourhood culture. The late Betty Brown, sadly missed by all who had the privilege to know her, often told me how happy the residents were about the new park which in turn made me happy too, after all, the park was built for the local residents and not for me".

30th Anniversary of Mural Art Work

Garnethill Community Councillor Hugh Wynne noted that 2009 was the 30th anniversary of the completion of this mosaic artwork and painted murals. Margaret Khan, current Chairperson, recollected that her daughter had taken part in the art classes for local children, held in the 'Community Shop' in Hill Street, that contributed to the mosaic designs.

In 1978 the future of Garnethill’s residential status was still uncertain, as Glasgow City Council had not yet finalised the Garnethill Local Plan. No provision could realistically be made for future maintenance costs of the murals - and this was innovative, urgent art that posed many questions in both direct and indirect ways. The people of Garnethill themselves began the physical renewal of their blighted landscape by demonstrating that things could change. Since that time, Garnethill has been substantially upgraded and the renovation of this significant public mosaic art work would contribute to the continuing process of regeneration and afford the respect that this community's own art and own achievement merits.

The mosaic mural "has become a monument", as Beverly Ballin Smith of Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division remarked to Edmund Smith, another Garnethill artist and designer. Edmund had contacted her to enquire about her survey some years ago of the Easterhouse Mosaic, an extraordinary mosaic mural that grew out of the Garnethill project, which now lies stacked in pieces in storage, having been cut from its walls, its future unknown.

Nicola Ashurst of Adriel Consultancy, who oversaw the restoration of the Doulton Fountain in Glasgow Green, has examined the Garnethill Mosaic, and adjoining painted gable mural, to lend her expertise to the renovation proposals.

Garnethill Park showing sandstone amphitheatre and water courses. photo May 2007: © copyright J. Kraska

A Seminal Work of Scottish Art

The Garnethill Mosaic, despite its 'private' location on the (historically significant) rear wall of 35 Buccleuch Street, falls undoubtedly within the category of 'Public Art'. It is a seminal work of Scottish 'public' and 'community' art, of 'environmental' art, all the more so in that it became a founding and constituent part of a what Dieter Magnus described as, "a very special Scottish-German pilot project, a project which led to a new neighbourhood culture".

The mural, with its path, was the first secular, large scale, mosaic art work to be built in Scotland's exterior urban environment. The artists who created it went on to carry out many mosaic projects such as the Easterhouse Mosaic (and much other painted mural work) in Scotland, - and also in England. Artists who came to visit, such as Stephen Lobb and Carol Kenna of the Greenwich Mural Workshop soon set up exterior mosaic projects in London.

The course of public art and community art was influenced and changed through the youthful strength and energy of the mosaic's durably executed design. In its architectural context, as the new and vibrant external wall of a hitherto little regarded and neglected commercial building, it threw down (along with its companion painted gable mural) a challenge to renew, not just to its host building behind, but to the whole de-energised drabness of the surrounding forsaken landscape of that period. The mosaic-studded wall belongs both to its building and to the park that grew about it. In respect of the building it is one of several horizontal slabs/lines that make up its vertical mass, an architectural relationship that it was important to retain, while at the same time the mosaic strongly defines a boundary of the park, a visual stop containing richly varied colour and finely crafted detail - a tactile backdrop interwoven with visual and linguistic playfulness.

The gradually deteriorating condition of the mosaic mural and the painted mural needs to be addressed, as was acknowledged more than ten years ago, by the city's Planning Department ;

"the prominent position of two of the murals, overlooking Garnethill Park, means that their deterioration adversely affects the setting of the park, and indeed the restoration of these murals could greatly enhance the park." (JB Watson, Senior Depute Director of Planning). On another occasion in 1993, it was stated that, "a condition of the planning consent for the conversion of 35 Buccleuch Street requires that the mosaic mural be retained and protected during building works......in order to protect the visual amenity of the surrounding area."

HRH The Princess of Wales at the Garnethill Park - Friday 13 December, 1991.  Photograph: J. Kraska©copyright 1991

The People's Princess and The People's Square

Dieter Magnus wrote that, "Garnethill Park has been and will always be a unique and exemplary project which should be protected, which was also appreciated by the late Princess Diana".

Dieter referred to the changes that had occurred since the park was made - "As far as the tree houses and other wooden objects are concerned, it was clear from the beginning that these would not last forever, and might have to be removed one day, this was nature taking its course. It is possible, however, to repair the water course and the lights, and I would urge that this work is carried out". (The lighting in Garnethill Park was repaired and revised in late 2008, and a number of new lights installed to improve user safety and overall lighting levels, including three ground-fixed lights in front of the mosaic wall. These changes increase the level of light falling on the mosaic wall.)

Garnethill Park - during a performance by Thaissa Domingos local dance group.   photograph 2005 © copyright J. Kraska

In looking hard at the Garnethill Mosaic work and the factors surrounding it, it also became necessary to consider the whole setting of the Garnethill Park, and to assess how it has come to be used. Many elements have altered resulting in many different balances arising within the whole design. Social habits have changed. In the park, as in other public spaces, there have been fairly persistent problems with alcohol and youth drinking, an increase in broken glass, graffiti, and damage to light fittings.

There has been general wear and tear, including seating bench foundation subsidence, cement pointing needing redone, with small problems gradually enlarging. It's very contradictory because so many people find it such a good place to come and sit, or to stage an occasional event, or just to pass through and enjoy the welcome difference, even despite the unreliability of the original water flows, so important to the fulfillment of the park's original concept and identity. In early 2009 the City Council's Parks Department replaced two of the original stone and wood seating benches with new curving stainless steel benches, and other work is scheduled.

Ulrike Enslein's cast concrete slabs inscribed with quotations.

A notable finely balanced recent addition to the park, in 2005, by local resident and architect Ulrike Enslein, are the cast concrete slabs inscribed with quotations from residents, placed amongst the granite setts of the park's pathways, a project financed through an architectural association award. One cast is a tribute to Garnethill Community Councillor, Betty Brown, that adds to the commemorative plaque to the late former Lord Provost Susan Baird, who formally opened the renewed 2000 park design, and to the inscribed stone marking the visit of Princess Diana.

Garnethill Park showing sandstone amphitheatre, performance areas, and water courses. photo May 2007: © copyright J. Kraska

Pressures on the Park - Stopping the Erosion - New Impetus

Glasgow can at times seem a harsh and uncompromising city, as evidenced by its well-documented history of severe social and environmental problems, and this small, singular, open-access public park space, given its near city centre location, necessarily serves many diverse (and sometimes contradictory) public needs.

In a 1989 application for funding to build Garnethill Park by Glasgow City Council to the Scottish Development Department's Urban Programme, the justification for the project was,

"Garnethill has a high proportion of ethnic minorities, a relatively high child density for an inner City area and an exceptionally poor open space provision with few other opportunities for improvement", and, "the area suffers from intrusion by traffic and by the many visitors to local institutions and places of entertainment". The application also noted that, "The District Council, which purchased the land for housing purposes, has now agreed that it should be used for open space".

The population of Garnethill has increased substantially since that justification was made, through additional house building and conversion to flats, with still greater density of inhabitants and other users promised. There has been school and college expansion, a great increase in nearby licensed clubs, bars and restaurants, more visitors and tourists: the conditions described in 1989 have been greatly exacerbated, with no commensurate compensation in respect of "open" or "green" space, and yet more intensive use of the park itself.

The Glasgow School of Art, as one example, along with a recently announced £7.5 million restoration programme, intends to increase its visitor numbers from a current 22,000 to 30,000 in the next few years, and the functioning condition of the park, a stone's throw away, will come under closer scrutiny, and greater expectation. Glasgow School of Art, as a potential "World Heritage Site", with forthcoming building re-developments of £50 million planned, will influence its environs in new ways. St Aloysius, has considerably increased pupil numbers, and Stow College has expansion plans. In Garnethill, "green" or adaptable open space has all but disappeared, and the pressures on the park can only increase.

Dieter Magnus said that "the park was built for the local residents", but in reality it is an 'oasis' that must be shared by many others. There is a clear need to stop the evident erosion of character and quality in the park, and to stimulate new impetus in the maintenance and sensitive development of these important and rare assets. In so doing it may also be possible to re-engage with those who are disaffected, who no longer see this space as theirs to protect, by revealing that things can change in fascinating ways, and help to recreate dialogue and identification through the processes of visibly bringing ideas of interest, relevance, and high quality into being.

photo 2005© copyright J. Kraska

Beauty and the Blight - a Glasgow Emblem

The park and murals have admirers at home and abroad as in this extract from flickr image web site.

LiseMac says:

"I could listen to your stories all day ccgd, you really have an interesting way of speaking and description. Anyway, thanks again, I am growing more and more attached to this play park/mural, with all its history."

phostak says:

"....... I like the little ziggurat and other matter in the foreground. Here's my own reminiscence . I feel oddly attached to this spot as well. I was a yank going to university at UCL. I had just arrived in Glasgow sometime in the late spring, '86 (just finished the last term before summer, I think). The sun was making its first faltering appearances of the year, which felt blinding nonetheless. I got off the tube at Cowcaddens and was wandering around to find where I was to stay. This was the first landmark I saw. I thought, "this is curious" and snapped a quick shot. It ended up being kind of emblematic of what makes Glasgow special to me. Here we have a crater (from the demolition of a tenement, perhaps, some of the not-so-creative architectural destruction that hit the town after the '60s?) juxtaposed against some marvelous public art that someone, for reasons of his or her own, took the trouble to put on the now-exposed side of the remaining row house. Nice. Beauty and the blight. It's the kind of thing that makes me come back to visit whenever I can."

Mosaic mural and pathway - (No... the wall isn't really curved... digital photography!) - photo. April 2007: © copyright J Kraska

In response, Garnethill Community Council set up a sub-committee to pursue that objective. Its initial aim was to seek funding for the mosaic and pathway that it helped bring into being those years back. However, in addition to the mosaic project, the Community Council was concerned to improve the overall condition of the park and and to see it developed for the continuing benefit of local people, daily users, and visitors alike.

The brochure reminds us that,

"Following discussions with the Garnethill community, some existing features on the site were retained and incorporated in the overall design, most significantly the Garnethill Mosaic Mural and pathway...."

Looking south over Garnethill Park, with Blythswood Square the lone green echo (top of picture).

In the above aerial view, the bright green patch of Blythswood Square gardens, 5 street blocks distant from Garnethill Park, represents the only surviving remnant of William Harley's once extensive landscaped complex that was first laid out in 1804. It consisted of a bowling green, a 30 ft high viewing tower, 'pleasure gardens' along Sauchiehall Street, coupled with water ventures and 'hygenic' dairy farming. He also acquired ground in Garnethill "for the purpose of growing gooseberries"! After Harley's bankruptcy, the square was further evolved by the developer William Hamilton Garden and his architect John Brash, and opened around 1823, when it was known as Garden Square.

Blythswood Square (bottom) and site of the present-day Garnethill Park (top).

The map above, circa 1820, shows Glasgow's westward expansion of the city centre grid which would soon consume William Harley's free flowing developments, yet his entrepreneurial acumen has left its 'green' mark on our cityscape, and today we draw inspiration from his multi-facetted innovative endeavours.

The name of Garnethill, or "Garnet Hill"(see map) itself is attributed to another innovator, in science and education, Professor Thomas Garnett M. D., originally from Westmoreland, appointed as the first Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow's Anderson's Institution in October 1796. "The first classes took place in November 1796 with a course of lectures given by Garnett ‘on Arts and Manufactures’ connected with Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, and illustrated by working models and experiments covering such subjects as bleaching, dyeing, calico-printing, etching, engraving and metallurgy. So successful was this and other earlier courses that the cost of renting rooms in the Trades House, £31.10/-, was easily met" (Strathclyde University Archives). Shortly after his young wife died, Garnett left Glasgow in November 1799 to take up the inaugural position of Professor of Chemistry in the newly founded Royal Institution in London. Though having lectured successfully in Glasgow, "he was broken in spirit by his wife's death in childbirth, and he soon died of typhus" in 1802 aged thirty-six. His essay “Remarks on Female Education”, published during his Glasgow period, places him as a significant figure in the struggle for the emancipation of women. In the posthumously published "Popular Lectures on Zoonomia", Dr. Garnett wrote that

'Tis the great art of life to manage well
The restless mind."

The map also shows The Cranston Hill Water Company location on Hill Street/Garnethill Street, which later held a circular water reservoir, the water then being distributed to the surrounding city. Garnethill's highly diverse community is like a reservoir of many talents, and the collective efforts of its peoples involvement in its rebuilding from near oblivion has been notable. The whole, as exemplified in the art and craft of mosaic making, is far greater than the sum of its parts.

MOSAIC MURAL RENOVATION PROJECT FUNDING

If you would like to help fund this project, or otherwise assist, please contact John

or contact:
Garnethill Community Council, Garnethill Multi-Cultural Community Centre,
21 Rose Street, Glasgow G3, Scotland, UK. Tel: 0141 353 3784

This document was researched and produced by John Kraska © copyright.

July 2007 - updated 4 March 2009

55° 51' N 4° 13' W