The Egyptian Halls on Union Street, designed by Alexander “Greek” Thomson, have emerged from behind scaffolding for the first time in over 30 years.
Glasgow City Council has issued a defective building notice and procured contractors to carry out urgent stonework repairs.
Councillor Ruairi Kelly said the moment marked a turning point for one of the city’s most significant buildings.
“There’ll be people coming into work today in Glasgow who’ve never seen this building behind me in their lives,” he said.
“I lived in Glasgow for 16 years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen it without scaffold covering it.”
The old scaffolding is now coming down, with a temporary structure due to replace it while repairs are carried out.
“What’s happening now today is that we issued a defective building notice, and that means that we have now procured contractors to do necessary stonework repairs,” Kelly said.
“So the scaffold will be coming down, a new safe scaffold will be going up for a short period of time so those works can be carried out, and then they will be taken away while we work on the future of Egyptian Halls so that this masterpiece on Union Street can be brought back to its full glory and appreciated by the people of Glasgow like it should have been for the last 25 years.”
Egyptian Halls repairs and next steps
For now, the immediate focus is on making the Victorian structure safe.
The repairs are intended to stabilise the weathered stone facade, which features the classical columns and intricate carvings that mark out Thomson’s work.
The temporary scaffold will stay in place only as long as the stonework requires.
After that, the council says it will turn its attention to securing the building’s longer-term future.
For Kelly, the reveal is a reminder of what the city has been missing.
He said the building should have been “appreciated by the people of Glasgow” for the past quarter of a century.
But the immediate sight of the Egyptian Halls, uncovered on Union Street, offers Glaswegians their first clear view of the masterpiece in a generation.
The building is also at the centre of a council bid to take control through a compulsory purchase order and transfer it to developer Ediston, whose preferred scheme would create a hotel above leisure uses on the lower floors.
In May, the council said the owners had not carried out work required under an earlier defective buildings notice, allowing it to step in directly and begin repairs.
The Egyptian Halls have been vacant and derelict on the upper floors for more than 30 years and have been on the national Buildings at Risk Register since 1990.
