Theatre Architects

Born: 1867 (Glasgow, UK)

Died: 1942 (Glasgow, UK)

John Fairweather was born in Glasgow where he trained at the College of Science & Arts from age 14, then later studied part time at the Glasgow School of Art and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College.

Fairweather commenced practice in 1895 in Glasgow, and his early independent work consisted largely of tenement house buildings for the builders J & T McNair in the east end of the city.

Fairweather married Evelyn Ronaldson in 1906. The lived in the Stepps area of Glasgow where they raised their four sons.

In 1913, Fairweather was engaged as architect by the cinema-theatre pioneer George Green. In 1922-23 John visited the United States to study theatre and cinema design in which he had specialized since joining Green’s.

Fairweather designed the Edinburgh Playhouse – the largest and most opulent cinema ever built in Scotland that still survives today in its original form. It remains as the best surviving example of Fairweather’s cinema designs.

Fairweather died 13th January 1942 in Stepps (Glasgow) as a result of being knocked down on Cumbernauld Road during a wartime blackout, by a car with no lights. He was buried in the family plot at Bedlay Cemetery, Moodiesburn.