On your right, look for a grand, grey neoclassical building with a long row of tall Corinthian columns and a domed cupola on top, sitting proudly at the edge of Royal Exchange Square.
This is the Gallery of Modern Art, or GoMA-Glasgow’s main stage for contemporary art, the kind that can make you laugh, frown, or quietly argue with yourself all the way home. The funny part is the building itself looks like it’s expecting Roman senators to show up at any moment. That’s because it began life in 1778 as a private townhouse for William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, one of Glasgow’s Tobacco Lords-wealthy men whose fortunes were entangled with the triangular slave trade. So yes: today’s bright, questioning modern gallery lives inside a shell funded by an older world with some very dark receipts.
The building kept reinventing itself. In 1817 it was bought by the Royal Bank of Scotland, and later it became the Royal Exchange-basically, Glasgow’s place for big-money dealmaking. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, architect David Hamilton reshaped it for that role, adding the grand Queen Street-facing pillars, the cupola above you, and a much larger hall behind the original house. The whole makeover was designed to say, “We’re serious people doing serious business,” which is exactly the kind of sentence modern artists like to poke at.
Then, in 1949, the city bought the building for £105,000-about £3 million today-and in 1954 it turned into a library space, with a huge ornamented hall, towering display units, and enough specialist collections to keep curious Glaswegians busy for years. Eventually, after the books moved back out, the building was refurbished again-this time for art-and GoMA opened in 1996.
Today it’s a lively mix of temporary exhibitions, workshops, talks, and big projects that tackle present-day social issues head-on. You’ll also spot some sparkle outside: that mirrored strip high on the front is Niki de Saint Phalle’s work, and she carried the shine into the entrance too-like the building decided to check itself in the mirror before letting you in.
When you’re set, the Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington is a 0-minute walk heading east.
