Comment

I’m pleased that Glasgow has won the Arts Council of Great Britain’s accolade to host a year long festival of architecture and design in 1999 because I’m hoping that it will help persuade the world that Scottish and British products are among the best in the world.

It seems that we always think that other countries have more of a winning formula in the design stakes than we do. We value Italian furniture, French fashions and American jeans over our indigenously designed products.

What we often don’t know is that many exotic imports are created by British designers; Claire Brass for Alessi, Tom Scott at Ford, Julie Tierney and Marcus Oates at IBM, and of course Alexander McQueen at Givenchy and John Galliano at Christian Dior.

Along with the rest of the world we envy exciting design from Barcelona, the colourful, rustic styles of Provence and Tuscany, and Germany’s super smooth technology. However, I believe that we have only just begun to mine our rich resources of Scottish design inspiration. We have already found it within ourselves to produce tartan and the Paisley pattern, world class knitwear and textiles, Macintosh coats and, our very own genius, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

In Scotland we are lucky to have a distinguished tradition of design which is currently being rekindled and presented on a world stage in the lead up to our Year of Architecture and Design. In 1999 designers will be challenged to look forwards to the millennium instead of backwards to Scotland’s distinguished heavy industrial past and unrivalled Victorian heritage.

Today, Scottish architects and designers are working to create new ways of living for a new century—designing buildings and products which will place Scotland firmly on the ‘most desirable list’ for a long time to come.