The Scottish architect who helped Glasgow ‘Americanise’

It’s just the latest occasion that Hollywood has come to Blythswood and its environs, with American film companies eager to take advantage of Glasgow’s resemblance to major US cities.

Glasgow has provided the “US” backdrop in films such as Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, Avengers: Infinity War, and World War Z.

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The city’s grid pattern layout and handsome mercantile buildings from the Victorian era onwards mean that with clever set design, it can double for places like Philadelphia.

No single architect or town planner made Glasgow resemble USA cities, but one man who did more than most to “Americanise” Glasgow was the architect James Miller.

It was in this week of 1947 that Miller passed away at the age of 87, his long life and career encompassing many of Scotland’s finest buildings. Personally, I feel he should be ranked alongside his contemporaries Alexander “Greek” Thomson, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Sir John James Burnet as one of the most influential architects in Glasgow’s history.

Born in 1860 as the son of a farmer, George, at Auchtergaven in Perthshire, Miller soon moved with his family to Little Cairnie in Forteviot. He was schooled at Perth Academy before being apprenticed to Perth architect Andrew Heiton, known for his designs of railway stations, churches and country houses. Miller then moved to Edinburgh to study under Hippolyte Blanc, a pioneer of the Gothic revival style.

In 1888, Miller was appointed to the position of architect on the staff of the Caledonian Railway Company and began to acquire a knowledge of engineering from his mentor, the company’s engineer-in-chief George Graham. This skill stood him in good stead as he would later design links between trains and steamers such as Gourock Pier.

His early station designs were influenced by English buildings and were similar at first as shown by Troon and Fort Matilda stations. But they were never formulaic, the most remarkable being his design of Wemyss Bay station which remains a tourist attraction in its own right and regularly features on lists of the best-designed stations in Britain.

The Wemyss Bay design came 10 years after he won the 1892 competition to design Belmont Church in Glasgow’s West End. That win enabled him to set up a private practice which he did in West George Street.

Miller continued to work for the Caledonian and other railway companies and one of his first private commissions was to design the chalet-style stations that are such a feature of the West Highland line. His distinctive designs of stations such as Stirling and the extension to Glasgow Central all added to his growing renown.

One of his best-known designs was the distinctive Flemish Renaissance-influenced red sandstone ticket office of the St Enoch station on the Glasgow Subway. Dating from 1896, it is still in situ at St Enoch Square and is one of the city’s most distinctive and most loved buildings.

In 1901, Miller won a competition to design a section of the Glasgow International Exhibition at Kelvingrove. His Sunlight Cottages showcased the best of what he thought would be the future of house design, and proof that he was correct is shown by the fact that the Cottages are the only surviving remnants of the 1901 Exhibition.

In the early years of the 20th century, Miller really hit his stride with designs that included the frontage of the Turnberry Hotel, some of the early work on Gleneagles Hotel and the wonderful rebuilding of the Peebles Hydro which re-opened in 1907 using a lot of material salvaged from the fire which had destroyed the hotel – another example of Miller being ahead of his time.

His biggest design job was the rebuilding of the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow completed in 1907. It was controversial at the time because of its sheer size, but again Miller was anticipating future developments as he reckoned demand for the hospital’s services would only grow.

In that year he also designed the sumptuous interiors of the Clydebank-built liner Lusitania which would meet a tragic fate when it was sunk by a German submarine in 1915.

Miller’s childhood friend Donald Matheson became an engineer and worked closely with Miller, who was also very careful in selecting his staff.

The Dictionary of Scottish Architects states: “Miller’s 20th-century practice depended for its quality of detail on a series of supremely well-chosen assistants. In the earliest years of the century, these included James Carruthers Walker from 1900 until at least 1911, and James Carrick, Alexander McInnes Gardner, Thomas Andrew Millar, George Arthur Boswell, Thomas Lumsden Taylor, Balfour Abercrombie and Charles Forsyth for shorter periods of two to four years.”

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The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland described him thus: “Very reserved by nature, he did not enter much into public life and was well content to let others talk architecture while he was doing the job.

“Quick-tempered, he could also be very sympathetic and understanding when the occasion demanded. He was also a hard taskmaster, but few of the men who passed through his hands will deny that they benefitted to a remarkable degree from being employed by Mr Miller, and many of them, now successful architects on their own account later wrote to him to this effect.”

It was Matheson who provided the impetus for the best-known stage of Miller’s career. The engineer toured the USA in 1902 and much influenced by him and architectural journals, Miller began to design major buildings for businesses in Glasgow. These all showed American traits including the Union Bank on St Vincent Street and the Woodhouse building on Renfield Street.

Outside of Glasgow, he designed Clydebank’s municipal buildings and the Institute of Civil Engineers in London.

Miller and his wife Emilina Henrietta had three children, Mabel, Muriel and George James who joined his father’s architectural practice only to die in 1940, at which time Miller wound up the business. He died at home in Randolphfield, Stirling, on November 28, 1947.