MySide: Tearing Down Walls

On the 29th of June 2025, the final two tower blocks of Caledonia Road - known locally as the ‘Caley Road flats’ - were brought down. They were sentries of a 1960s vision for the Gorbals, 24-storey experiments in modern living that have now been folded back into the earth. 

The Anatomy of Erasure 

The Gorbals is a landscape defined by a cycle of constant erasure. Over the last century, the area has been comprehensively cleared and redeveloped three times. Each iteration, from the 19th-century tenements to the soaring Brutalist icons of the Glasgow Corporation, promised a new beginning yet each ended in fragmentation. The Caledonia Road flats, originally owned by the Scottish Special Housing Association, were intended to replace 60 acres of slums with light and height. Instead, they became what contemporary critics characterized as "monuments to the mistakes of the city's post-war housing renewal policy" (Glendinning & Muthesius, 1994). 

My engagement with this area began in the summer of 2023 as part of the ‘Gorbals: Then and Now’ project facilitated by Street Level Photoworks. This community-led initiative sought to build a living archive of the area, connecting the historical record of photographers like Oscar Marzaroli to our current social reality. At that time, the high-rises were a permanent fixture of the skyline, though their time was already being measured. 

The Vacated Interior 

Following the community exhibition at Gorbals Library, this project evolved from the public streets into the private, domestic spaces of the towers. In October 2023, through an arrangement with the New Gorbals Housing Association, I was granted access to the vacated flats. 

The transition was jarring. The homes had been cleared of life; the furniture and personal effects were gone. What remained were the "ghosts" of residency. On the walls, the wallpaper had yellowed, stained by years of tobacco smoke. The absence of the residents was most visible in the "shadows" - the rectangular patches of original colour where family pictures had hung for years, protecting the paper from the haze of the room. In these identical concrete cubes, these marks were the only remaining evidence of human agency. 

The Residue of a Dream 

The documentation concluded in June 2025. In a matter of seconds, the final two blocks were demolished. Standing in the grey, panoramic landscape of crushed concrete afterward, the scale of the loss became tangible. 

Amongst the debris, I began collecting the physical detritus of the collapse: fragments of wallpaper recovered from the rubble. These patterns – vibrant 1970s ochres and geometric florals – represent a third wave of displacement for the Gorbals area. By isolating these fragments of wallpaper against a neutral background, this project seeks to create a material counter-archive to the city's official narrative of renewal. 

Much like the wallpaper itself, the identity of the Gorbals has been torn and layered across generations. These fragments remain as defiant reminders of the domestic intimacy that existed within the concrete grid; capturing the small, personal textures of a place that made us, even as it was being unmade. 

If this piece has you thinking about the changes shaping your landscapes and communities, MySide is open now, and we want to see photographs and projects that explore your side of life.