One Year After Bail-Out, Scotland’s Center for Design and Architecture Faces Closure Once More

We’ve seen a few high-profile cultural institution bailouts, from Eli Broad‘s massive donation to keep Los Angeles’ MoCA alive and most recently the quick turnaround on keeping LACMA‘s struggling film program afloat. But what happens when it doesn’t work? Toward the end of last year, you might recall that Scotland’s national center for architecture and design, The Lighthouse, was inching ever closer toward demise until, about a month later, the national government and its city council stepped in to pump some money back in. Unfortunately, while the financial injection has kept The Lighthouse running these past eight months, it looks like they’re back in the same boat as they were before, already in deep debt and announcing that it will have no choice but to shut down by next week unless it receives additional funding. And while the last crisis seemed like it had some momentum behind saving it, this time around, having depleted their resources so quickly and getting into a huge amount of monetary trouble once again, there doesn’t appear to be as much support. Here’s a bit:

“The last rescue package was done in the hope that the board could find a way of improving the situation,” the source explained. “But The Lighthouse has proved just too expensive to run, it’s not being managed efficiently.”

The Scottish Government said no extra funding would be made available. A spokesman said: “We commend the excellent work The Lighthouse does and hope to see it overcome its present problems.”

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