A long time ago international exhibitions were all the craze with demonstrations of art, nature and even buildings travelling across Europe and beyond.
In a period at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, Glasgow was home to countless exhibitions from the 1880's to the end of the 1930's. This was an opportunity for Glasgow to construct some of its many architectural masterpieces which would be showcased on the world stage.
1938 was the last year that a international exhibition of that magnitude took place in Glasgow. This took place at Bellahouston Park with Scotland's first ever skyscraper being temporarily constructed dubbed 'Tait's Tower' with some calling for it to be erected to mark the 100th anniversary.
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The 300 foot tower constructed was designed by the locally born architect, Thomas S. Tait which was part of the Empire Exhibition and celebrated the British Empire trade and developments which was open to the public from May to October 1938.
It is reported that the skyscraper gave views for up to 600 people at a time and gave views of over 60 miles which was branded a "remarkable achievement" by none other than King George VI at the time of his reign of the United Kingdom.
The King's remarks at the time were made during the opening ceremony of the skyscraper which took 10 months to construct with 10,000 workers employed but the tower was not the only thing that the builders had to work on.
The exhibition covered a massive 175 acres of land and featured 200,000 plants with 10 miles of road but that is not all as the demonstration of architecture was finished off with many other entities.
It had its own post office, police force and fairground ran by camp entrepreneur, Billy Butlins with the featuring over 100 palaces and pavilions and a 2000 seater concert hall, featuring performances by some of the world's most revered singers and orchestras.
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The tower was so popular that over 360,000 people visited it on it's last day on October 29, 1938.
Now, in recent times there has been calls from local politicians to rebuild 'Tate's Tower' to be reconstructed to its former glory.
Including, Local MSP, Paul Sweeney who has recently called for the tower to be rebuilt, he said: "I call for Thomas Tait's iconic Tower to be rebuilt at Bellahouston Park in time for the centenary of the 1938 Empire Exhibition. Great to see architect Alan Dunlop and Ian Johnston also supporting the proposal."
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