Red Road (flats) - Criticism

Criticism

Contemporary critics of the scheme accused Bunton – who was close to retirement at the time – for championing the development as a personal vanity project; he was well known within Glasgow Corporation as a strong proponent of high-rise housing; his practice having designed other similar multi-storey estates around the city. Bunton was said to have dreamt of "building a Manhattan-style skyscraper" in Glasgow, hence the use of the steel frame construction system in place of the "system-built" pre-fabricated concrete panel method which had been used for all other tower blocks built in the city up until that point. This would create one of the estate's most significant legacies – steel construction had to be fire-proofed, which meant the use of asbestos, a legacy which would blight the estate in the coming years. Bunton argued for the steel frame in numerous letters to the Glasgow Herald in February 1963, claiming "it is the best material available in the construction field since it brings into active participation an array of steel erectors, and the resources of an industry which is at present only working at one-third of its capacity"., thus suggesting that local politics (primarily lobbying from Glasgow's underworked steel fabrication industries) had shaped the design of the buildings in other ways.

The first three towers were formally opened on 28 October 1966, by the then Scottish Secretary, Willie Ross. For most of the early residents, living in the flats meant a considerable and welcome rise in their living conditions, since most had previously lived in much worse housing, often severely overcrowded, either nearby or elsewhere in the city. From the time they were built until recent years, they were owned by the local council.