Draft:GLASpaper

GLASpaper was a Glasgow-based alternative newspaper published from 2001 through to 2007, offering critical perspectives on architecture and space.

History

GLASpaper was produced by Glasgow Letters on Architecture and Space (GLAS), a co-operative founded in 1999 by postgraduate students at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. “G.L.A.S grew out of a design studio that I ran for ten years at Strathclyde,” said Johnathan Charley, one of its founding members. “Together with ex-students we decided to organise an architect’s co-operative with a mission to provide a radical critique of the capitalist built environment.”

GLAS was made up of architects, designers, teachers, and activists.

A non-hierarchical list of active members was included in every issue of GLASpaper, with the exception of the ninth and final issue. Over the years, members included Rosalie Adams, Allan Atlee, Judith Barber, Jason Bell, Gary Boyd, Jonathan Charley, Alistair Clements, Tony Dunworth, Ulrike Enslein, Apostolos Kalfopolous, Florian Kossak, Carole Latham, Gillian Lockyer, Rosalie Menon, Alan Pert, Tatjana Schneider, and Adrian Stewart.

Content

GLASpaper was created to address an absence of imaginative thinking about architecture in mainstream media. Convinced that architecture, design, and construction were inherently political, GLAS aimed to change the politics of dominant architectural practice through praxis and collectivity, citing left-wing political thinkers like Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, and Guy Debord.

The GLAS manifesto consisted of seven statements that were reprinted at the beginning of every issue:

GLAS is a co-operative of architects, teachers, writers and urban activists

GLAS is committed to fighting all manifestations of socio-spatial inequality, exploitation and deprivation

GLAS produces multi-media critical works and design ideas that promote a radical social and political rethinking of how we make and experience buildings and cities

GLAS is engaged in a critique of the capitalist production and use of the built environment

GLAS is committed to the dissemination of its ideas to as wide an audience as possible, exploring a broad range of communication techniques

GLAS aims to offer free advice and assistance to individuals and social groups engaged in struggles to transform their environment

GLAS is organised around the political principles of temporary existence and of collective self management and ownership of assets and ideas

Topics discussed in GLASpaper included spatial inequality, privatisation, social housing, public transport, and urban protest. Following its commitment to reach as many people as possible, GLASpaper used different creative techniques to communicate its ideas. Articles, interviews, and essays shared page space with spoof ads, photo collages, graphics, and comic strips. Issues would often list community resources and spotlight local struggles, including the closure of a swimming pool on Glasgow’s south side.

Distribution

Free copies of GLASpaper were distributed around Glasgow in libraries, swimming pools, community centres and other public spaces, with a typical print run of 5,000 issues.

Mail subscriptions were also available on a sliding scale. In the early 2000s, copies of GLASpaper included subscription forms that could be cut out and mailed. As Internet access became more widespread, readers were encouraged to send their requests for print copies via email. Issues 07, 08 and 09 were produced in Berlin and included text in German. By 2007, digital versions could be freely downloaded from the GLAS website.

Context

GLASpaper was part of a wave of architectural publications that appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Blogs and academic journals like thingsmagazine.net, Grey Room, and Log saw the Internet as an opportunity to politicise and democratise knowledge about the built environment. Their intellectual predecessors were the militant architectural zines of the 1960s and 70s, namely Utopie

and ARse (Architects for a Really Socialist Environment).

In the inaugural issue of GLASpaper, GLAS members associated themselves with ephemeral, small-scale attempts to contest the capitalist built environment, “whether it be a sit-in, a protest march, or a shabeen.”

Given this link between political protest and architectural education, GLASpaper was arguably a vehicle for critical pedagogy.

Publications

GLAS produced eight issues between 2001 and 2005:

• Issue 01, Urban Cabaret (September 2001)

• Issue 02, Transport & Movement (Winter 2001/2002)

• Issue 03, Production (Spring 2002)

• Issue 04, Learning & Education (Summer 2002)

• Issue 05/06, A-Z of War (Spring 2003)

• Issue 07, Unser Berlin/Our Berlin (Autumn 2003)

• Issue 08, Spaces of Labour (Summer 2004)

• Issue 09, On the Edge (Spring 2005)

In April 2007, GLAS published GLASmanual, an eight-step broadsheet outlining their approach to critical engagement with the built world:

• 01 Imagine: Gather, Manipulate and Transform Meaning

• 02 Protest: March, Demonstrate and Stand for Your Rights

• 03 Listen: Question, Interpret and Learn from Others

• 04 Observe: Travel, Look and Think Twice

• 05 Inform: Meet, Organise and Share Your Ideas

• 06 Satire: Dismantle, Disrupt, and Remember to Laugh

• 07 Critique: Write, Draw, and Change Your Environment

• 08 Act: Plan, Make and Intervene

External links to archived GLASpaper issues

• Issue 01 – Urban Cabaret

• Issue 02 – Transport & Movement

• Issue 03 – Production

• Issue 04 – Learning & Education

• Issue 05/06 – A-Z of War

• Issue 07 – Unser Berlin/Our Berlin

• Issue 08 – Spaces of Labour

• Issue 09 – On the Edge