October 25 2005

A competition to help turn Bellahouston Park in Glasgow into a sculpture park have been won by architecture practices. Three winning entries by Gross Max, Gareth Hoskins and JM Architects will be developed to a detailed design stage with the hope of installing them over the next three years.

The competition organised by Glasgow City Council Land Services and the House for An Art Lover which sits within the Park. “Bellahouston Park was the site of the Empire Exhibition in 1938 and is therefore a perfect site for such a venture. There has been a long history of broadening the definition of what a park is in this area,” said David Leslie, Chairman of House for an Art Lover.
The project by Gross Max, Garden for a Plant Collector is likely to be the first proposal to be constructed. “Our proposal is a Decadent garden. We made a real attempt to move the traditional idea of a Romantic garden forward. We looked at a garden not as nature but as man manipulating nature,” said Eelco Hooftmann of Gross Max. Housing phosphorescent plants which have been augmented by the DNA of jellyfish, this glass house will sit in a secluded part of the park.

Glasgow Roots by Gareth Hoskins will trace a sculptural line south to north across the hill with the relics of a former mansion and the base of what was Tait’s Tower, an icon of the Empire Exhibition of 1938 as two of its major reference points. Labyrinth by JM Architects draws on Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories and the film The Matrix and will according to Leslie, “provide visitors with scope for interaction as well as a commanding modern presence.”
The competition rules stipulated a budget of £100,000 for each project. House for An Art Lover has so far raised £100,000 for ARTPARK in its entirety.

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