Crathie Court from Exeter Drive, 1955.
The photographer Alf Daniel contrasts the Victorian tenements in Kildonan Drive (right) with Crathie Court, a new eight-storey building in the International Modernism style in Crathie Drive. Completed by Glasgow Corporation's Housing Department in 1952, Crathie Court contained eighty-eight "bedsits" for unmarried women. The building won the Saltire Award for the best-designed flats in Scotland in 1952 and is significant because its construction set the scene for future high-rise council housing in Glasgow.
In 1955 Partick Camera Club set out to create a photographic survey of Glasgow. As the project progressed, other camera clubs joined and each was allocated a district of the city to photograph. Glasgow Museums exhibited the photographs at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and at the People's Place, and in 1956 the exhibition was shown at the Palace of Art in Bellahouston Park. The photographs are now part of Glasgow Museums' collections.
Reference: 1005.97.213 / OG.1955.121.[182]
Reproduced with the permission of the Partick Camera Club
Keywords:
bedsits, children, council houses, Crathie Court, flats, girls, Glasgow Corporation, Glasgow Photographic Survey 1955, housing estates, housing schemes, International Modernism, Saltire Awards, spinster flats, tenements, unmarried women