Grand Central

Grand Central Hotel, Central Station, Glasgow

May 28th – June 6th 1999

In early 1998 nva organisation were commissioned by the 1999 City of Architecture & Design Festival Company to develop a project, which would tie in with their Big Design Day. The remit of the project was to create a stand alone event which would be spectacular, provocative and memorable but genuinely be about architecture and design.

With further input from Glasgow City Council and the National Lottery New Directions scheme the idea grew to create a large-scale performance originally centred around Central Station. The search for a venue over four months proved difficult and it was only with the discovery of the top two floors of Central Hotel that creatively the project really began to fire up. This was dictated by the powerful atmosphere emanating from the 6th and 7th floors of Central Hotel and the addition of Simon Costin to the nva team.

Thematically this gave the company great scope to explore darker themes of loss and decay in a unique setting. Working with a small and dedicated team on a tight budget, nva harnessed the considerable power of the venue and created a subtle and challenging set of transformations on the top floor of the hotel. Lights and sound were hidden through huge external and internal cable runs and concealed positions, while thematically the team really enjoyed exploring the disturbing ideas behind the production.

Excellent (and eccentric!) performers were cast from the film world, permissions granted through open and professional negotiation with health and safety personnel and an immense press campaign built up.

The hotel management were excellent throughout the entire process facilitating a company and a direction which required great trust and open-mindedness. They retrospectively feel this was more than justified and have increased their status in Scotland considerably through the connection.

The strength of the production team managed to deliver even the most complex ideas put forward for the event, though spawning problems and heat did lead to problems with the bed of eels, which we were unable to rectify (we can’t fight nature!). The public reaction was well documented and again we were pleasantly surprised by the range of the audience and the intensity of reaction. It seems on a primal level that people love scaring themselves and in general the understated interaction left enough to the imagination to let people find there own level of involvement or concentration.