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PARTICIPATE
Participating in Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival means opening a building, running an event or leading a walk.
For returning participants you can use the LOGIN button to update your submission for 2023 — once logged in, click REVIEW SUBMISSION.
If you are a new participant, click the REGISTER button to create your login and be taken to the participant dashboard.
Need help? We held a Participant Information Session, find the video below.
You can also get in touch at doorsopendays@gbpt.org or call 0141 5544 411.
The deadline for submissions was 19th May.
GLASGOW DOORS OPEN DAYS FESTIVAL 2023: THE SENSORY CITY
Each year Glasgow Building Preservation Trust sets a theme to inspire participants to think about their heritage interests in a new way.
The theme is set to inspire, provide focus, and help with planning, it is not compulsory. If you’re planning an event that goes in another direction, please do still submit.
Some participants may choose to engage with the theme head-on and investigate some of the changes that the city has undergone in its long history. Others may use the opportunity to look at their own organisation and to celebrate the changes that they have made in their own communities.
Read more about the festival theme below.
While sight tends to dominate in the world of architecture, our non-visual senses – touch, taste, hearing, and smell – have a profound effect on our lived experience of cities and buildings. This year, Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival invites you to explore the story of the city through the senses.
What does your city feel like? The surfaces and textures we encounter each day influence us more than we realise. Mostly they go unnoticed. Cold, polished marble in the City Chambers; soft, mossy gravestones in the Southern Necropolis? Timber, stone, concrete, metal, and glass all create different sensations and influence our feelings and perceptions of a place. They can evoke a range of emotions: the degraded carved stone of the Govan Stones inspires intrigue and mystery and the rough sandstone of tenement buildings provide comfort and familiarity.
How does Glasgow sound? Do the chants of football fans in your favourite stadium make you feel at home? Is it the bells of the Tolbooth at Glasgow Cross that whisk you back in time? Do you listen for the rumble and splash of the River Clyde on your walk in Glasgow Green? And when you’re away on holiday, does an unlikely call from across the pool of “bolt ya rocket!” make you smile, or gie ye the boke? How have city sounds evolved through the ages?
Which whiff takes you to the Toon? Have you experienced the aromas of the Clydeside Distillery, and allowed your mind to drift through the floral and tropical notes of their single malt? What about the smells you endure for the sake of a good night out – a sweaty Barrowland Ballroom on a Saturday night – or the warm mustiness that accompanies a rummage through Starry Starry Night or Voltaire & Rousseau bookshop? Can you imagine the smells of times gone by? The Briggait, a former fish market, a portal to the sea, or the hot metal, smoke, and oil of industrial Dalmarnock.
What’s Glasgow like on the tongue? How many sweethearts have looked longingly at each other over a knickerbocker glory at University Cafe or Cafe D’Jaconelli? Or are you an east-end lover, wooing your beaux with a clappy doo at the Barras or a faithful fish supper from the Val D’Oro chippy. Or maybe the taste you look forward to is a daal after prayer at the Gurdwara, enjoyed with friends and family around you.
And now that you’ve got Glasgow in your ears, mouth, nose, and hands, open your eyes and soak up the skyline! Take in the rusting but vital Finnieston Crane, faithful companion to the river, the gothic and enchanting Gilbert Scott building at the University of Glasgow, and the seemingly just landed, smooth shell of the Hydro, a new but bonafide Glaswegian fixture. Look for the statues and their seagulls in George Square, and the coats of arms that adorn so many of the city’s buildings. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Glasgow opens another door, to the dizzy heights of Mackintosh’s Lighthouse or the bow of the Tall Ship, the tunnels of Central Station, or the vaults of the Museum’s Resource Centre.
In 2023, take a moment to consider how Glasgow’s heritage impacts your experience of the city today…
…and do as the poet says, and listen!
Touch! Taste! Look! Smell!
Tree, fish, bird, bell.
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SESSION
We held an information session to update you on developments for the 2023 edition of the festival. Were were joined by Judith Dix from Carbon Consultancy, who spoke about the measures we are taking to address the climate crisis. Watch the video to find out more.
If you still have questions, get in touch at doorsopendays@gbpt.org.
VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES
Each year Glasgow Doors Open Days Festival relies on a team of volunteers to be the face of the event, and keep things running smoothly.
Volunteers help with many vital tasks over the course of the event: supporting participant to deliver activities, helping visitors find their way around, and helping to collect visitor evaluation surveys.
Volunteering with GDODF is a great way to get experience and meet new people. Lots of people volunteer because they are passionate about Glasgow’s heritage.
We will be looking for volunteers a bit later in the year but you can get ahead of the game, by registering your interest here.

HAVE A LOOK BACK AT FESTIVAL 2022:













