McDonalds Fast Food Restaurant & Drive-thru:
Located in Linthouse, just west of Govan this McDonalds restaurant and drive-thru has sat empty for a few years. A single storey yellow brick building with restaurant area at the front, kitchen and store central and to the rear with a drive-thru route circling around the building. Fenced off since being abandoned the building has been broken into many times and the only surprise is it hasn't been burnt out yet. Stripped of all branding the only logos can be found on signage at the drive in and on a cctv sign.
The building is an example of the chain's former image, which ran for some 30 years till being phased out post-2006. The building sports the signature mansard roof (though strictly speaking not a true mansard) which was first used to lend the buildings a sense of style and history as this roof style originated in 17th century French renaissance architecture and was latterly popularised by the Victorians. As its use became a signature of McDonalds worldwide the history of the mansard was largely forgotten, instead becoming a symbol of low rise shopping developments and fast food outlets worldwide and the opposite of the culture and history it was formerly employed to impart.
The design style seen in this derelict building can be seen as part of the global signature for McDonalds up till 2006. The fast food popular culture aspect and the imposition of the same design style regardless of site and location has rendered these buildings as parodies of architecture, and their worth is held in the same esteem as the food they served, a transistory building destined for the skip of architectural history.

However whilst it is tempting to ignore such pedestrian examples of design, it must be remembered that exactly this ignorance means that one day soon they will all have vanished. Should an example of such a building be saved? Like many mass-produced articles these buildings no doubt will be lost forever en masse, despite having played a part in the everyday lives for millions of people. When one considers how the most banal of mass produced articles when old can achieve a previously unimagined value this question takes on a new meaning. For example as can be seen in museums worldwide with 20th century design displays, when we encounter long forgotten articles from times past, for instance electrical goods from childhood, cars that maybe grandparents drove, ancient cola cans, or banal structures these previously banal objects assume a great deal of pathos and meaning. These articles are as much our history as any other, in the same way that the current architectural dismissal by many of the brutalism of the post war years is leading to a cleansing of architectural history, a pseudo mimicry of ethnic cleansing albeit in a realm of far less significance and pain.

Trash is as much the history of modern man as the ornamental fake classicism of the multiple stone edifices erected by the our Victorian forefathers and currently held aloft as an architectural pinnacle by so many in the northern cities. Thus in the case of these kit built fast food restaurants which many may currently dismiss may yet assume great cultural signficance in time. Perhaps in fifty years time a museum may have a mocked up McDonalds restaurant with mansard roof and the garish red and yellow colour scheme found worldwide for so many years, and for those who grew up with such plastic edifices of our Americanised fossil-fuelled culture and have not seen or thought of them for half a century they may well reminisce about the loss of late 20th century icons such as this McDonalds drive-thru.......


street address: Moss Road, Linthouse, Glasgow, G51 4JT
Latitude / Longitude: 55.86343,-4.334813 (sourced using Google Maps)
site visit date: 01 July 2011

drive-thru former entrance (01/07/2011)


approach from the main road towards the north and east elevations (01/07/2011)


parking bays sited outside the building (01/07/2011)


north-west corner, and removed hoardings where the building has been broken into (01/07/2011)


looking down the east elevation from the north-east corner (01/07/2011)


north elevation, it is assumed the steel barrels are fly-tipped (01/07/2011)


north-west corner, behind the heras fence is the drive-thru road (01/07/2011)


view north along the west elevation, the former drive-thru road, with the serving booths to the side of the large red steel posts sited to prevent collisions from vehicles (01/07/2011)


view into the building through a former drive-thru order window (01/07/2011)


broken into, the building has been vandalised internally (01/07/2011)


air conditioning pipes and fittings strewn around the floor and hanging from the ceiling (01/07/2011)


brackets for former roof signage advertising the restaurant to the A739 to the south (01/07/2011)


damaged roof tiles, and former power supply to the signage (01/07/2011)


the signature McDonalds mansard roof (01/07/2011)


south elevation and the brick wall of the storage area at the restaurant's rear (01/07/2011)


anti-climb measures at the rear (01/07/2011)


view into the former storage and delivery area at the rear (01/07/2011)


the ever 'inventive' local grafitti (01/07/2011)


south-west corner (01/07/2011)


view from the south (01/07/2011)


vandalised roof at the rear (01/07/2011)


former drive-thru entrance with the Southern General hospital in the background (01/07/2011)


drive thru entrance and the long east elevation onto the small retail car park area (01/07/2011)


drive thru' clearance signage (01/07/2011)


east elavtion and the signature mansard roof (01/07/2011)


view north up the full length of the east elevation (01/07/2011)


car park signage and one of the only two McDonalds logos left at the site, reflecting the way when abandoned the former McDonlads' buildings are stripped of their corporate identity (01/07/2011)




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view looking north-west, to the left of the photograph can be seen the low square tower of one of the southern general hospital buildings, ahead is the south elevation of the fenced off McDonalds, to the right the Lidl store also occupying the small retails site adjacent to the A739 which connects with the Clyde tunnel some 250 metres to the north-east