This relatively modest residential block is the experimental precursor of the modern multi-storey development in Glasgow, Crathie Court is located on Laurel Street in the Thornwood district of the city. Designed in 1949 by Ronald Bradbury, Glasgow's Director of Housing, and completed in 1952, Crathie Court contained eighty-eight bedsits for unmarried women. It thus gaining the epithet "the spinster flats".
Executed in the International Modernist Style, this eight-storey building was Glasgow Corporation's prototype for high-rise living. It is U-plan with a central stair tower above the entrance, glazed vertically, further stair towers at the corners of the facade, featuring round porthole windows to the front and vertical glazing to the side. These towers are connected by external walkways giving access to the individual flats. The block also includes a common room and a solitary two-bedroom flat, once occupied by a caretaker.
Crathie Court won the Saltire Award for the best-designed flats in Scotland in 1952 and was B-listed in 2012.
