Reimagining Egyptian Halls

An Ideas Competition for the adaptive reuse of Thomson’s Egyptian Halls

In 2019, The Alexander Thomson Society invited designers from around the world to develop ideas for the adaptive re-use of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s Egyptian Halls, one of Glasgow’s greatest historic buildings.

The objective of the completion was to invite innovative, imaginative and purposeful design solutions for the reuse of the A-listed Egyptian Halls, a warehouse building completed in 1872 on Union Street, Glasgow by the celebrated, nineteenth-century architect Alexander Thomson (1817-1875).

The purpose of this competition and exhibition was not to form a feasibility study or develop an architectural approach, but to raise awareness of an important part of Glasgow’s architectural heritage which unfortunately is in a poor condition and at significant risk of further decay and possible demolition.

The Society invited entrants to generate concepts for alternative uses for the Egyptian Halls and wanted to provide little limits to entrants creativity. The only conditions applied were:
– The Union Street facade and the rear facade to the lane must be retained and restoration assumed;
– The internal cast iron structure may be retained or adjusted as a matter of judgement;
– Roof top additions are to respect the appearance of the building from the street.

The Submissions were reviewed on the basis of quality, strength of concept, intergration with the original building fabric and the response to the wider urban context of the site.

We received 21 entries to the competition, both from the UK and from farther afield, including the USA, India, Brazil, Russia, the Phillipines, Slovenia and China.

All entries are published below. We also plan to launch a public vote for the entries, allowing members of the public and our membership to vote for the entires which they think are best, or to offer alternative suggestions.

Winners:

1st Prize / Commendations

We are planning to hold a public vote on all entries as part of our Save Egyptian Halls campaign to have the building listed as one of Europa Nostra’s 7 Most Endangered heritage sites. We want this vote to be (as much as possible) uninfluenced by the formal judging process which has already been undertaken.

Following the public vote, we will update this page to display the winning entries. In the meantime, the winning entries are announced here.