2024-11-05T07:36:16-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/74500783/faulty-tower-glasgow-s-10m-white-elephant Archinect 2013-06-03T11:43:00-04:00 >2013-06-10T20:24:28-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/27/27e815e9c506b33de8d38449d419b52c?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>When it was built, it held the Guinness World Record for the "tallest fully-rotating tower" - although to be fair, there was not much competition for that particular accolade. The 127m-tall (416 ft) steel and glass tower, the highest building in Scotland, was the only structure in the world able to rotate fully through 360 degrees from base to top. Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland says the idea was unique: "Nobody had ever tried to do that."</p></em><br /><br /><p> <strong>The problem, however, is that it doesn't work.</strong></p> <p> <em>The tower has now been closed since August 2010 and the science centre recently announced it had settled a lengthy court action with the contractors.</em></p> <p> <em>Science centre bosses said they had received "substantial" compensation but there seems to be very little prospect of the tower ever turning again.</em></p> <p> <em>Architect Peter Wilson, of Edinburgh Napier University, is one of the critics of the project.</em></p> <p> <em>"The fundamental thing about this is that when it was initially designed, it was never meant to be built," he says.</em></p> <p> <em>"It was intended for an 'ideas' competition."</em></p>