Best known as the “Armadillo”, the Clyde Auditorium is a famous venue for concerts in Glasgow, Scotland. Located on Queen’s Dock on the Clyde River, the building is an infill of the ConferenceCentre and the Scottish Exhibition.
In 1995, plans were drawn for a new building to further increase the seating capacity of the SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) complex. Designed Foster and Partners, an award-winning architectural firm, the new 3,000 seating venue was finished in 1997. By this time, it began to be calledby its popular nickname because of the similarity of its shape to the armadillo.
Many have compared the Clyde Auditorium with the Sydney Opera House (built in 1973), but theformer was not the architects’ inspiration. Rather, it was the interlocking patterns of a ship's hulls,clearly attributed to the shipbuilding heritage of Clyde.
The Clyde Auditorium has easily become one of the most recognizable images on Clyde and one of the buildings most associated with contemporary Glasgow. Because of this success, the "Scotland's National Arena", the third venue to be added to the SECC is currently in the works.
The very popular animated show, The Simpsons, featured the famous facade of the Clyde Auditorium. The episode’s title was "Springfield's Got Talent", a parody Susan Boyle’s famous audition for Britain's Got Talent in January 2009 which was filmed at the Clyde Auditorium.
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