GLASGOW RECEIVES GRANT FOR “TURBINE HALL OF THE NORTH”

A lottery grant will transform a Scottish rundown former fish market into an arts space on par with London’s Tate Modern, reports Scotland’s Sunday Herald. A £750,000 ($1,460,333) Heritage Lottery Fund award announced earlier this month will be used to refurbish the Briggait in Glasgow’s city center to create a mixed-use visual-arts space, including an exhibition hall, which, it is claimed, will become “the Turbine Hall of the north.” The fish market and seventeenth-century merchants’ steeple will be restored and adapted to house studio and exhibition space for 250 artists and provide more than 150 creative-industry jobs. The project by Wasp Studios and Glasgow Sculpture Studios aims to raise Glasgow’s profile on the world arts stage. Although the Briggait currently houses Glasgow Sculpture Studios, much of the building has been empty for twenty years, with no heating and poor public access.