
Nightclub, theatre, creative hub, party place, and one of the most important venues in Scotland, Britain and Europe: for almost 25 years, The Arches was the beating heart of Glasgow. In 1991, former punk-turned-theatre director Andy Arnold walked into the disused red brick Victorian railway arches underneath Glasgow’s Central Station and immediately saw the potential of the space. Not even he could have imagined its future, as simultaneously one of the biggest and most famous nightclubs in the world and a major player on the European theatre scene. Until its closure following a drug-related death in 2015, The Arches carved its own, indefinable path, playing a vital role in the lives of many Scottish artists along the way. Some of those stars of the future began their careers taking tickets, hanging coats and serving drinks there. For the first time, the people who made the venue get to tell their story. Piecing together accounts from directors, DJs, performers, clubbers, artists, bar tenders, actors, audiences and staff, Brickwork writes the biography of a space that was always more than its bricks and mortar.
Author

Kirstin Innes is an award-winning journalist and arts worker who lives in the west of Scotland. Fishnet, her debut novel, was published in April 2015 by Freight, and won The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. Her short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and recorded for BBC Radio 4, and she's had short plays performed at Tron Theatre and The Arches in Glasgow. Her journalism has been published in The Independent, The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and The Herald, and she was assistant editor of The List magazine between 2006-2010. Kirstin won the Allen Wright Award for Excellence in Arts Journalism in 2007 and 2011. She's currently working on her second novel, Scabby Queen, and her first full-length play, Take Your Partners.