GDODF Hidden Stories Map, Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival 2020, Building Scotland, Scottish Architecture

Hidden Stories Map, Glasgow

7 Sep 2020

The Hidden Stories Map News

Design: Hoskins Architects

Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival Project by Hoskins Architects

For this year’s Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival (GDODF) Hoskins Architects brought together a range of collaborators to work together in response to recent global events and produce a beautifully illustrated, educational and accessible digital walking tour, aimed at young people.

image © Stuart Kerr

Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival is a brilliant, eclectic celebration of the city we love, and in which we live and work. This year, festival organisers, Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, have overcome the obstacles COVID-19 presented by making their event entirely accessible online, with the timely theme of Untold Stories.

Rani Lakshmi:

image © Stuart Kerr

During lockdown, we witnessed worldwide protests in the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd, which led to a global debate on how society addresses structural racism. Part of that debate has focussed on how we think about the statues and street names historically connected to slavery and racist ideology. During the late 17th century notions of racial superiority were developed and even codified into law, in order to justify the enslavement of African people.

Duke of Wellington with the traffic cone:

image © Stuart Kerr

The story of how Glasgow was shaped by the Transatlantic slave trade is fascinating, as is the lack of discussion and formal education around it. Understanding our history and these ideologies is imperative, as it will help us better understand and question racist ideas that continue to affect people’s lives now.

Nelson Mandela:

image © Stuart Kerr

Hoskins Architects invited Stuco Design, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) and veteran political campaigner and community activist Cllr. Graham Campbell to collaborate on the project, bringing together a diverse set of skills with wide-ranging experience. All involved share a belief in the fundamental role the creative arts and design have in telling these important stories in an engaging way.

The Hidden Stories Map is an interactive, digital walking tour aimed at young people, incorporating challenges and stories that reveal the connection our city has to the Transatlantic slave trade. Brought to life by the beautiful illustrations of Stuco Design and the voices of a diverse group of school children, the tour is designed to encourage young minds to explore and interrogate the built environment around them.

Graham Campbell:

image © Stuart Kerr

The aim is to continue developing this collaborative work into a more comprehensive resource to be used in schools to give young people a better understanding of Glasgow’s built environment and the history that shaped it, and to promote discussion about how we can address inequality in our society.

The Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival (GDODF) will run between 14th and 20th of September 2020. All events are free to attend but some live events such as webinars need to be booked in advance.

James McCune Smith:

image © Stuart Kerr

This year GDODF Guided Walking tours will be delivered via a fantastic app called GuidiGo. It’s free to download and is an accessible and interesting way of exploring the city.

Visit Glasgow Doors Open Days website for details: www.glasgowdoorsopendays.org.uk

The Hidden Stories Map is listing no.93, in the events section of the brochure

The Hidden Stories Map Team

Hoskins Architects is an established, design-led architecture practice with studios in both Glasgow and Berlin, delivering award-winning architecture throughout the UK and Europe. From individual private houses to national public institutions and large commercial developments, whether new-build or redevelopment, the practice strives to produce elegant, well-crafted buildings that generate a sense of place and become enjoyable, healthy and sustainable places to live, work and play.

WWW: hoskinsarchitects.com
TW: @Hoskins_Arch
IG: hoskins_arch
EM: press@hoskinsarchitects.com

Stuco is an award-winning Glasgow based, multi-disciplinary design agency whose engaging work ranges from large scale exhibitions down to the design of the new RBS banknotes inspired by Scotland’s natural landscape and female achievements. During lockdown founder Stuart Kerr’s Instagram feed has contained wonderful drawings documenting his surroundings. Stuart has brought The Hidden Stories Map to life with his illustrations of the buildings and people involved.

WWW: stucodesign.com
TW: @stucodesign
IG: stucodesign / stuartkerr

The Coalition for Racial Equality & Rights (CRER) is a Scottish strategic racial equality charity, based in Glasgow. Since 2001, CRER has co-ordinated a programme for Black History Month in Scotland, including the first Black History walking tours of Glasgow. These tours presented an opportunity to learn about our built heritage but most importantly to engender discussion about the legacy of empire, slavery, colonialism, and migration. CRER has also produced and published a significant volume of written work to address a wide range of racial equality issues in Scotland. In 2009 it published It Wisnae Us: The Truth About Glasgow and Slavery an important piece of writing by historian Stephen Mullen, which evolved from an exhibition created with GBPT in 2007, examining this aspect of Glasgow’s history.

WWW: crer.scot/
TW: @crer_scotland

Hoskins Architects

Hidden Stories Map: Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival images / information from Hoskins Architects

Location: Glasgow, Scotland, UK