‘A giant playground for the imagination’: New book looks back at Glasgow’s iconic venue The Arches – Glasgow Live

For decades, it was the beating heart of Glasgows cultural scene. From clubbing to theatre, the sprawling arts complex beneath Central Station hosted some of the most exciting talent not just in Scotland, but from around the world.

Then 2015, after 24 years of setting Scotland's alternative artistic agenda, it was forced to close after losing its late night alcohol license, cutting at the heart of the budget that helped sustain the space.

Now, two former Arches staff members have written a book, Brickwork , detailing the story of The Arches and examining its history and why it, in their words, "probably couldn't be replicated."

Novelist Kirstin Innes and actor and comedian David Bratchpiece

So what made The Arches so special?

Kirstin suggests that a big part of it was Andy Arnold and the team he assembled around it right at the beginning. People were turning up and mucking in their free time for the love of it for a long time until it became a viable business model.

"It was the first place in the UK - and, I think, the whole of Europe - to do that public/private funding where all the revenue from the clubs funded an arts programme."

The title itself hints at a reason why the space was so successful as a venue, especially for live music and clubbing. Kirstin explains that the secret lay in the brick arches that gave the venue its name. "The way that they work is that the sound goes up into them and straight back down again, which is a really intense experience for a clubber. The bricks, she suggests, soaked up the hedonism over the two and a half decades it ran.

David agrees.

"That space was filled with the energy of all the different creative people that came through. No matter what they were doing, if they were working on a gig or a club or an exhibition - it creates an energy within the building, you could always sense that buzz around the building. You could even sense it in the basement after the refurbishment where there were new rehearsal spaces in there.

But, as with any performance space, it was the shows themselves that were the real star. Hosting everything "from a club to a Beckett play", Kirstin says that the ethos of the venue allowed for a variety of voices, genres and media to be explored.

It was fun-loving, irreverent, but also really caring about the interesting stuff. And crucially, not elitist - absolutely not elitist.

Both writers hold fond - if occasionally hazy - memories of the time they spent there, as punters as well as employees. For Kirstin, her time there saw her shift from an indie kid to a a fan of house and techno, and a highlight for David is when the funk legend George Clinton played (and a pint got spilled over the lighting board).

"He went up onstage wearing an Arches staff t-shirt, and when the crowd saw that they went absolutely wild."

It's clear from listening to them, and from reading the stories in the book itself, that the space shaped not only the professional lives of the people who worked their, but their creative tastes.

"It was just a gigantic playground for the imagination," Kirstin says. "You could come in there and it could be so many things. This gigantic open free space that was just into possibility and experimentation.

The Arches may have closed but it legacy lives on - both in the careers it shaped, and the memories of the people who played, danced and performed there.

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'A giant playground for the imagination': New book looks back at Glasgow's iconic venue The Arches - Glasgow Live