Curran Building / Andersonian Library (Glasgow)

 interesting place, apartment building

Although the Curran Building in its current form opened in 1980, the history of the structure is much older. Originally it was a book warehouse built in 1961 by William Collins and Sons - a famous book publisher which operated a sprawling complex of buildings in Townhead. When the company moved out of the area in the mid 1970s, the University of Strathclyde purchased the former Collins' estate and demolished most of it. Only this, and the Lord Hope Building survived. The University spent the late 1970s converting the warehouse into the third home of the Andersonian Library, and it formally opened in 1981.

It is named after Sir Samuel Curran, the Principal who had masterminded Strathclyde's genesis as a university and served between 1964 and 1980 (not counting his years as Principal of the Royal College of Science and Technology where he had served since 1959).

Originally, the building housed the Fraser of Allander Institute, and the Scottish Hotel School amongst other miscellaneous departments, although these have now been relocated elsewhere to expand the size of the library. As a sign of the times perhaps, the John Smith bookstore at street level sadly closed in 2018.