Kelvin Hall

The Kelvin Hall in Argyle Street Glasgow, Scotland, is one of the largest exhibition centres in Britain and now a mixed-use arts and sports venue that opened as an exhibition venue in 1927. It has also been used as a concert hall, home to the Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena to 2014, and from 1987 to 2010, Glasgow's Museum of Transport. As part of the economic redevelopment of Greater Glasgow promoted by the Scottish Development Agency and local authorities to enhance the city's tourist infrastructure and to attract further national and international conferences the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre was designed as the Hall's successor for exhibitions and entertainments, built and opened on the nearby Queen's Dock in 1985 with an exhibition area equal in size to the Kelvin Hall but with the benefit of extensive car parks and land for other complementary buildings. The Hall is protected as a category B listed building, and is served by city bus services and by Kelvinhall subway station.

Redevelopment of the Kelvin Hall is under way with the first element, occupying part of the area, opened in September 2016, containing art, cultural and health and fitness activities promoted in a partnership of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Life, the University of Glasgow. and the National Library of Scotland.

The Kelvin Hall, which is named after Lord Kelvin, stands on the banks of the River Kelvin opposite the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in the West End of Glasgow. It was designed to complement the municipal display of Kelvingrove Park, in particular the nearby Gallery and Museum. Fronted in red-sandstone with a palatial entrance piazza the immense steel-framed building dates from 1927. Its predecessor on part of the site, also known as the Kelvin Hall, was constructed on the cinder-based football areas of the Bunhouse Grounds, owned by the Incorporation of Bakers of Glasgow, as a temporary hall using brick, wood and iron, and was opened in August 1918 to house the second British Industries Fair in the city. The new structure was designed by Robert James Walker, the leading architect of the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry of 1911 held in Kelvingrove Park. The hall was then taken over by the military authorities as a clothing store. As soon as it was released in 1919 the Corporation of Glasgow bought it and the adjacent government building, formerly the indoor West End Roller Skating Rink which also housed flower shows and community exhibitions, used from 1914 for the manufacture of munitions on the remainder of the Bunhouse Grounds, all upon the site of the timber-constructed Machinery Exhibition Hall of the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901 centred on Kelvingrove Park. From 1918 and 1919 until the Hall was destroyed by fire in 1925, British Industry Fairs and various exhibitions, were held, also flower shows, circuses and carnivals, with the surpluses being paid into the Common Good. The new Kelvin Hall covers 6 acres and was designed to house large-scale exhibitions and events. It was built for Glasgow Corporation in 1926-1927 and was designed by Thomas Somers Glasgow's Master of Work and City Engineer, assisted by Thomas Gilchrist Gilmour. Thomas Somers also designed the new bridge over the Clyde at Oswald Street, known as the King George V Bridge, which was also declared open by King George V on the same day, 12 July 1927.

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