The Sunday Times

It's almost 60 years since a delegation of Glasgow councillors returned from Marseilles determined to transplant Le Corbusier's Mediterranean vision of high-rise living to the banks of the Clyde. It must have been one hell of a trip, because it engendered the most comprehensive redevelopment scheme ever seen in the UK. Following that 1947 fact-finding mission, Hutchesontown and the Gorbals were among the first districts earmarked for wholesale redevelopment. Approved in 1957, the £13m Gorbals project saw 7,600 houses razed and replaced with 3,500 new homes, half of them in multi-storey blocks. At 31 storeys, Balornock's Red Road flats were the highest in Europe when they were unveiled in 1969. Areas such as Springburn and Townhead were bulldozed, while thousands of high-rise homes were created in Darnley and Summerston. By 1979 Glasgow had more than 300 tower blocks. But then it almost all came tumbling down again amid the virulent backlash against post-war high-rise housing. The shock of the new was superseded by a spiteful distaste for the prematurely aged. Glasgow's high-rise social housing had become synonymous with urban blight and social deprivation.