Gabion: The Lighthouse 1/2

The Lighthouse, Mackintosh's former Glasgow Herald building now being turned into a permanent architecture and design centre, is enormous. OK, not British-Library enormous, but at Ł12 million for a conversion job, this is huge by the usually modest standards of such places. The team that has set it up and is building it, headed by the institution's director Stuart MacDonald, is steadily becoming almost independent of the rest of Glasgow 99. When it is in operation, it will employ at least ten people, with another 15 on hand for the big events. No other such centre in the UK - with the exception of the Design Museum in London, with which the Lighthouse will have links - has this kind of muscle.

Page, Park and Mackintosh's Lighthouse

As with the "Homes for the Future" project, the Lighthouse suffered delays during the planning stages and so will not open until nearly half-way through the Year. Sudjic relates how, when he took up his post as director of Glasgow 1999, the Lighthouse existed only as a design concept on the one hand, and as an unused asset in the Scottish Widows property portfolio on the other. Getting the idea and the reality to meet was the problem: in the end the city council bought it and leased it to the Lighthouse trust, though that was only the first step. The late opening is bad, but not so bad as it might seem: for the opening of the building itself becomes one of the Year's big events. It will boast an entirely new and rather fussy addition at the back by architects Page and Park, with interior graphics and displays by Javier Mariscal and Sam Booth of Glasgow designers lwd.