The Met Tower looms over George Square, a tombstone of a building with no clear purpose in the future. In March last year, Glasgow City Council approved their City Centre Strategy document mapping out the key priorities for the remainder of the decade. There were developments that are underway or nearing completion, including Candleriggs Square, the Barclays campus in Tradeston, the Love Loan development at George Street, the JPMorgan Chase building at Argyle Street and the major new Moda residential complex at the former Strathclyde Police HQ on Pitt Street.
The council identified 12 projects that would have a transformational effect on the city centre of Glasgow. Dramatic changes to the St Enoch Centre and Buchanan Galleries were among them. The Met Tower was to be completely redeveloped with a £60 Million investment to create a world-class commercial hub for tech and digital businesses of all sizes to co-locate and benefit from being part of an innovative, collaborative tech cluster. Two months after the strategy was published, the plan for the Met Tower was abandoned by the developer, citing challenging economic circumstances. No new proposals have emerged. It’s a building waiting for a purpose, one of a collection in the city centre that stubbornly refuse to return to a useful existence.
1. Met Tower
The Met Tower building in Glasgow is home to the distinctive pink ‘People Make Glasgow‘ sign that is now sunbleached, faded and deteriorating. It recently ranked second in a list of unattractive buildings in the UK. Photography experts dubbed the landmark building a ‘crime against architecture’. | Met Tower
2. Met Tower
Architecture Professor Alan Dunlop has defended the city centre landmark saying: “As far as the importance of the buildings, I think it’s one of the best examples of modernist architecture, certainly in Glasgow, but I would also say in Scotland. “It’s one of the finest and most elegant buildings built in the 1960s that Glasgow actually has.” When it opened as the Stow College of Building in 1964, the North Hannover Street premises was one of the first commercial high-rises in the city. | Met Tower
3. Met Tower
Bruntwood SciTech intended to bring the Grade B-listed building back into use and open in Summer 2025, following a 10-year period of vacancy, and construct the new, adjacent building set to open in 2026. This is the site as it looks today. | Met Tower
4. Met Tower
In 2020, planners approved a £100million office and hotel development at the former City of Glasgow College campus. Developers Osborne and Co were given permission to turn the 14-storey Met Tower into offices and build a 264-bed hotel. Developers Bruntwood SciTech acquired the building in 2022 and announced their own vision for the building last summer. | Met Tower