Glasgow’s world-famous Burrell Collection is about to open amid great fanfare but almost £70 million worth of changes to the prestigious gallery have left two figures singularly unimpressed: its original architects.
John Meunier and Brit Andresen formed part of the team of three along with Barry Gasson that in 1971 won a competition brief to design the museum housing the stellar art collection of the Victorian shipping magnate Sir William Burrell.
When the wraps come off a six-year refurbishment scheme at the end of this month, the “parents” of the Burrell do not expect to be happy. Meunier condemns the loss of important aspects which Burrell specified should form part of the museum: intricate replicas of the living quarters at Hutton Castle in the Borders, where he lived until his death in 1958.
Meunier, now emeritus professor at Arizona State University, has also witheringly criticised the newly created “hub” of the A-listed building as the kind of open space people would expect to see in a modern comprehensive school.
He admits he has not had first-hand experience of the new-look building and has had to rely on advance publicity material upon which to base his views. However, he added: “From what I have been able to see, I have to say that I doubt I will be happy. The physical changes do not appear to sustain the qualities that earned the building its class A listing.
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“I could find no mention of the castle in what I could read. Obviously, the original design responded to the idea that the collection was initially housed in Hutton Castle and was the very personal collection of Sir William Burrell; hence the importance of the three Hutton Castle rooms [a requirement in the competition brief], but that has been abandoned.”
His colleague Andresen, now resident in Australia, said that the award-winning 1971 design had been lost “in its entirety” in changes brought about by architects John McAslan and Partners.
The emeritus professor at the University of Queensland added: “McAslan’s composition is in fragments, in parts a jingle and sadly out of tune.”
The civic charity which runs Glasgow’s museums insists that the public will not miss the “disappearing” castle, and says visitors paid little attention to it when it was there. Glasgow Life said that the new Burrell was a “modern, greener” museum which will show more of the magnate’s collection and provide access to one third more floor space.
The refurbishment contract was awarded to John McAslan and Partners in 2016 and the construction contract went to Kier Construction Scotland a year later. The building was due to reopen in 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic has been blamed in part for the delay.
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The Burrell Collection is home to the Wagner garden carpet, one of the earliest surviving Persian garden carpets in the world. It has rarely been on public display since the collection was first opened by the Queen in 1983.
Nearly half of the funding for the £68.25 million project was committed by Glasgow city council, with more than a quarter coming from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and significant donations from the Scottish and UK governments and a number of trusts and private donors.
Meunier says that the new main point of entry “short-circuits the gradual immersion into the magical world of the collection that the original entry aimed to achieve”. He bemoaned the loss of two of the three reconstructed rooms from the collection’s original home in Hutton Castle as “weakening the link to Sir William Burrell’s unique history”.
He also argued that the original lecture hall, which has been replaced by an “anonymous” central vertical circulation space, “could be in any modern high school”. Meunier added: “These comments are made from a great distance without having been able to revisit the building, so they are provisional. But I have little optimism.”
In a statement Glasgow Life said: “Sir William Burrell didn’t seek an intricate reproduction of his home at Hutton Castle as the home of the collection and had approved plans based around a museum approach during his lifetime. By the time the Burrell closed for refurbishment in 2016, the Hutton Rooms were among the least popular parts of the museum and seen by just 1 per cent of visitors.”
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It added: “The displays at the refurbished museum still offer an experience of what life at home was like for the Burrells as they lived among the beautiful art collection they bought before donating it to Glasgow. Every gallery highlights the exceptional breadth, beauty and quality of the works the Burrells chose and lived among.
“The A-listed building that houses the Burrell Collection is widely acknowledged as a classic of its time which has been repaired and enhanced as befits its protected status. The award-winning architect of the refurbishment, John McAslan and Partners, has an international reputation for sympathetically protecting historic buildings and has retained its original brilliance while making the building sustainable and accessible.”
