Board meet in last-minute bid to save design centre
By Edd McCracken, arts correspondent

The Lighthouse, Scotland's flagship centre for architecture and design, will close this week, The Sunday Herald has learned. Unless a last-minute solution is presented at tomorrow evening's board meeting the Glasgow institution will go into administration.

A senior source close to the board confirmed that The Lighthouse's demise was imminent, brought about by several financially mismanaged projects and what was described as "an inherently flawed business model".

It is understood that its debts of £220,000 will be covered by Glasgow City Council and the Scottish government. The Lighthouse, based in an A-listed Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed building in the centre of the city, currently employs 57 people.

Earlier this month it was rumoured that the board would ratify a streamlined version of the organisation, retaining 13 staff, to save it from closure. But it appears this is no longer the case and it is set to shut its doors.

Currently celebrating its 10th birthday, The Lighthouse was conceived to nurture and promote Scotland's architecture and design. But last year Glasgow City Council had to save it from closure with a £250,000 rescue package after two mishaps: it went over budget on staging Scotland's contribution at the Venice Biennale and it failed to convince the government to run a second Six Cities design festival.

The board promised a "root and branch" review of its activities. The final plans will be announced tomorrow, but darkness appears to be falling on The Lighthouse.

Several figures closely involved with the organisation called on the Scottish government to step into the breach and save it. Dejan Sudjic was director of the Glasgow UK City of Architecture and Design programme in 1999, the year in which The Lighthouse was founded, and is now director of the Design Museum in London. "It is important that The Lighthouse survives," he said. "It would be a travesty if it was to fail. It is a great achievement, and to have come so far and to let it go for what amounts to a Westminster MP's expenses is frivolous in the extreme."

Janice Kirkpatrick, founder of the Glasgow-based design agency Graven Images, chaired the Lighthouse Trust from 2004 to 2007. She said it is not The Lighthouse that has gone wrong, but the government. "The reason it is in difficulty, by and large, is because we have a different regime politically who don't value architecture, design and creative industries in Scotland, it is that simple," she said. "We risk losing over 10 years of work. It is viewed as an exemplar of its type world-wide. It is such a Scottish story. It is just not valued at home. It is very, very sad."

Last Monday, however, the Scottish government declared its support for a satellite of London's Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, another institution dedicated to design.

Kirkpatrick added that the government was "backing the wrong horse".

"The V&A is great, but it's a museum," she said. "The Lighthouse is a place where businesses were born, not a place to look at things in cabinets. Designers are predisposed to creating businesses. So why not back them? It seems a no brainer."

The Scottish government, however, confirmed that there would be no extra funding for The Lighthouse.

A spokesman said: "We commend the excellent work The Lighthouse does both on its own and on behalf of the Scottish government and hope to see it overcome its present problems."

Neither The Lighthouse's director, Nick Barley, nor any member of the board wished to comment before tomorrow's meeting.

Award-winning Edinburgh-based architect Malcolm Fraser said the actual building and business model, based upon delivering government projects and renting out space, were flawed.

"The building was conceived as an icon rather than a working architecture centre," he said. "Everyone got excited about the building, but there was a lack of concentration on what was needed to get an effective property. The exhibitions are lost within it.

"Secondly, The Lighthouse has always needed policy and initiatives to give it work. It has become a beast that has needed things created to feed it. Clearly that is not a good model."