IF you have been in a car or on a bus going over the Kingston Bridge, particularly heading southbound, then you could not have failed to notice one of Glasgow’s finest buildings - the former Co-op offices in Morrison Street.
The impressive architecture has all the hallmarks of the Continent and, indeed, the building to the front of the warehouse was French Renaissance in style.
The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Societies (SCWS) had asked the Donald Bruce and Edward Alexander Buckingham Hay architectural partnership to design a complex of warehouses, salesrooms and offices to house its growing businesses.
Work began in 1886 and the crowning glory was the headquarters building at 95 Morrison Street, It completed in 1893 at the then phenomenal cost of £55,000.
SCWS kept its headquarters there until 1973, after which the building was largely left to deteriorate. In 1977, following the merger of SCWS and the Co-operative Wholesale Societies, the building became a retail hypermarket. In the late 1990s the building was converted into flats.
1959:This grand building is the premises of the former New Club in West George Street, which in 1959 was converted into office premises. It was designed by architect James Sellars in 1899.
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