Glaswegians have been going out to the pictures for a lot longer than you might think.
The city was rocked by the second Glasgow School of Art fire, which not only destroyed the art nouveau icon, but dealt a fatal blow to the O2 ABC in neighbouring Sauchiehall Street.
While the art school will inevitably rise once more from the ashes, the future doesn’t look so rosy for the charred and collapsed remains of the old ABC. With the landmark building reportedly filled with vermin and sewage, Historic Environment Scotland have even overturned their objection to its demolition.
Few are aware that the music venue’s history stretches back even further than Charles Rennie Macintosh’s masterpiece.
The ABC’s story begins way back in 1875 when it opened as the Diorama. Soaring above Sauchiehall Street, the magnificent domed building was a true Glasgow landmark that offered a new kind of entertainment.
The 19th century equivalent of an iMax cinema, dioramas displayed fantastical scenes and landscapes on large canvases which would be slowly rolled around the audience to make them feel as if they were experiencing it for real.
The Glasgow Diorama was Scotland’s largest. Canvases were displayed within a vast circular building which measured 110 feet in diameter and reached up to the sky at 130 feet tall. Glaswegians had seen nothing like it before.
In 1887, Glasgow’s diorama, which had by then been renamed the Great Scottish National Panorama, unveiled a new spectacle: the ‘Battle of Bannockburn’. Newspaper reports from the day captured the essence of the show.
The Edinburgh Evening News reported: "On entering, the visitor mounts a short flight of steps to a spacious platform which occupies the centre of the floor.
"The picture, which is shown on the circular outer wall of the building forms a complete surrounding to the interior, while between the spectator and the canvas the foreground is so arranged that one can scarcely distinguish where the picture ends and the floor begins.
"This arrangement of grass and brushwood in front of the canvas greatly heightens the effect of the reality.
"The canvas is 310 feet long by 25 feet wide and has been painted by Mr Philip Fleischer, at Munich.
"It shows the whole battlefield and the surrounding country, representing many miles of mountain and plain from the Grampians in the north to the windings of the Forth and far round towards Edinburgh."
The report added: "The idea of representing the field of the famous battle which opened a new chapter in Scottish history and decided the independence of the northern kingdom has been well conceived and brilliantly executed."
Not long after the Bannockburn spectacular, the diorama was transformed into a huge ice skating rink called Hubner’s Ice-Skating Palace, which was revolutionary for the time as both skaters and spectators were treated to moving images on the walls of the complex.
The ice skating rink also became one of the first buildings in the city to benefit from electric lighting.
Sign up to our Glasgow Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
There was another change for the venue in 1904, when Hengler's Circus moved its premises from Wellington Street.
A programme for the time advertises "noble forest-bred lions" displaying "the most extraordinary display of animal training the world has yet seen".
There was a strong focus on equestrian stunts, with the finale a "fairy fountain & cascade". No, we're not sure what that is.
Importing fairies proved to be expensive though, and Hengler's was forced to close its doors in 1924.
Three years later it was largely rebuilt as the Waldorf Palais de Dance, before the Regal Cinema opened in 1929, with Charles J McNair listed as the architect.
The cinema soon became the ABC, with a total of 2,359 seats in the auditorium.
In 1967 a smaller auditorium, the ABC 2 was added, and 12 years later further renovations turned it into a four-screen cinema.
The ABC 1 and 2 closed in October 1998 and October 1999 respectively, and it was feared the old building would fall into ruin.
However, David McBride of Regular Music realised that Glasgow needed a medium-sized music venue, and won permission to convert the ABC 1 into a 1,300 capacity concert hall.
Renovations began in 2002, with the ABC re-opening its doors in 2005 for a concert by U.S. pop-punk band Sum 41.
In 2009 it was bought over by the Academy Music Group, prompting the re-brand to O2 ABC.
Since opening as a music venue, the ABC has hosted the likes of Paramore, Ed Sheeran and Arctic Monkeys on their rise to success.
With the storied structure currently moth-balled and likely to be demolished following the tragic 2018 blaze, we just hope that something of this iconic building can be salvaged for future generations to appreciate.
