Glasgow's 'forgotten geniuses' celebrated in new book about city buildings including Central Station and Alhambra

Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson would probably get a mention too – but two of the city’s most prolific and successful architects would likely be left out.

And yet between them John James Burnet and James Miller are responsible for some of Glasgow’s most beautiful and well-known buildings – the George Square Cenotaph, Charing Cross Mansions, Glasgow Central Station and the Athenaeum, to name just a few.

Little is know about Burnet and Miller, but thanks to a new book by John Stewart, that is about to change.

The Life and Work of Glasgow Architects James Miller and John James Burnet is the first biography of the two men to consider their work as a whole and it is a fascinating insight into the wealth and success of Glasgow in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

While born just three years apart, the men were raised in very different circumstances – Burnet was the son of a wealthy Glasgow architect and Miller grew up on a farm. Their careers and lives became intertwined as they competed for work and, eventually, the role of Scotland’s leading architect.

Born in 1857 and 1860 respectively, one inherited and the other established successful practices in Glasgow as it emerged as the ‘Second City of the Empire’.

Burnet was the third son of John Burnet, a noted (and self-taught) architect, whose works included Elgin Place Church, once described as ‘the purest example of the neo-classic in Glasgow’. He was educated at the highly exclusive Blair Lodge School in Polmont, near Falkirk (it later became the site of a Young Offenders Institution) and at the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris.

After a Grand Tour of Europe, he returned to Glasgow and rose quickly through the ranks at his father’s firm and he led his profession in Glasgow in the latter years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries.

He produced many of the city’s finest buildings including The Athenaeum on Buchanan Street; the Alhambra, demolished in 1971; Charing Cross Mansions; numerous city centre commercial buildings such as Waterloo Chambers and Atlantic Chambers and the Townhouses on University Avenue.

After moving to London, his work included the extension of the British Museum, The Daily Telegraph Building on Fleet Street and Adelaide House by London Bridge. Burnet, who died in July 1938, was knighted and awarded the RIBA’s Gold Medal in 1923 and is recognised as one of Scotland’s finest architects.

James Miller, who died in November 1947, is Scotland’s most prolific architect. He grew up in rural Perthshire, the son of George, an innkeeper who became a tenant farmer to the Earl of Kinnoull. Miller was educated at Perth Academy and he firstly worked in Edinburgh before finding a job with the engineering department of the Caledonian Railway Company. There, he worked on the designs of new stations, including Greenock’s Fort Matilda, Gourock Pier and Bridge Street in Glasgow, as well as the city’s grand Central Station.

During his long career he also designed Glasgow Royal Infirmary, St Enoch’s Underground and Turnberry and Gleneagles Hotels. He was responsible for designing the interiors of the SS Lusitania and SS Aquitania, plus numerous banks, commercial buildings and churches in Glasgow and beyond. As the architect chosen to create Glasgow’s Empire Exhibition of 1901, he pipped Mackintosh to the post.

The exhibition was held in Kelvingrove Park and many of its buildings were magnificent, including Miller’s white and gold Industrial Hall inspired by oriental architecture and topped by a golden angel with an electric torch symbolising light.

Despite this extraordinary output and his considerable architectural contribution to Scotland’s heritage, he has received relatively little acclaim, until now.

Author and architect John Stewart, from Kirkintilloch, says the two men deserve to be household names because they were, he believes, “part of that last great generation of Scottish architects who, along with Mackintosh, [William Forrest] Salmon, [John] Campbell, [Rowand] Anderson, [John] Keppie and [William] Leiper, contributed the best of what remains of Glasgow after the loss of so much to post-war planning and comprehensive redevelopment.”

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He adds: “What we do know is that both architects rode the wave of Glasgow’s extraordinary late 19th and early 20th-century economic success at a time when it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

“They put that wealth to good use, creating art of the highest standard in sandstone and granite, and their masterpieces from this period should be treasured accordingly, just as much as any of the finest paintings or sculpture in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries or the Burrell Collection”.

The Life and Works of Glasgow Architects James Miller and John James Burnet (Whittles Publishing) is out now.