Elmbank Gardens (Glasgow)

 mixed-used building  Add category

Still popularly known as the "Charing Cross Complex", it is a mixed use commercial complex built between 1970 and 1973. Designed by Richard Seifert, the part most people are familiar with is the distinctive 13-storey former office tower which now houses a Premier Inn hotel. It was supposed to be much larger - Seifert's practice had envisioned a huge swathe of interconnected buildings that stretched from Argyle Street all the way to Charing Cross, but Glasgow Corporation's money ran out meaning that most of it was left on the drawing board - both this, and the Anderston Centre were the only parts of the scheme that saw the light of day.

The building was for many years shrouded in secrecy as it originally housed a research department for the Admiralty in collaboration with the local shipbuilder Yarrow - all that ended in the early 1990s when Yarrows was swallowed whole by British Aerospace, and the workers moved back to Scotstoun.....

The complex is now no longer a contiguous whole, its various elements have been divested to various organisations - the office tower was converted into a hotel in the mid 1990s. The office space was rebranded as "The Venlaw", but as of 2023 the complex faces substantial redevelopment with the low rise blocks slated for demolition to make way for new offices and student accomodation, with only the hotel tower surviving.