Templeton Business Centre

Category: Historic Building

Templeton Business Centre, facing Glasgow Green

This amazing, colourful building is often called "The Doge's Palace" because it resembles the splendid building of that name in Venice. The building was designed as a carpet mill by William Leiper and completed in 1889. It features a very unusual combination of materials - red sandstone, coloured brick, and ceramic mosaic. You can see here some of the fantastic details in the carved stonework, enamelled twisting columns, elaborate arched windows and extravagant brickwork. The coloured bricks are woven together almost like a carpet design, and the Eastern influence of the ornamentation reflects the "oriental" origins of some of the designs and colours used in carpet manufacturing. It is unusual to see so many colours on the surface of a building.