MENTION Glasgow’s architecture and most people focus on the works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Alexander “Greek” Thomson, the sweeping Victorian terraces of the west end or the confident commercial buildings of the Second City of the Empire.

Yet the city centre is studded with many interesting modernist buildings, constructed around the middle of the twentieth century. These are not always lauded – indeed, many are roundly condemned – but they reveal something about how the city saw itself and its future.

The post-war period was characterised by a strong belief in the arc of progress. As the world rebuilt itself - both metaphorically and literally - architects, builders and planners strove to infuse these utopian values into the city’s built environment.

Thankfully Glasgow was spared the full effect of the Corporation’s First Planning Report of 1945, which would have destroyed almost the entire historic city centre and replaced with it a functional core along the lines of a stereotypical Soviet Bloc town.

Whilst this vision was not realised, a walk around the city centre reveals many interesting buildings of the post-war period.

Within the eyeline of the Duke of Wellington and his famous cone stands an excellent example. The building known as 100 Queen Street is a six-storey office block constructed in the 1950s but its elegant façade looks much older.

Designed by Frank Burnet (whose father contributed greatly to Glasgow’s built environment, constructing hundreds of tenements across the city) it was a good solution to a specific post-war problem: the previous occupant of the site was destroyed by a bomb during the conflict.

Continue to Buchanan Street and at the entrance to Mitchell Lane you will see another subtle yet striking infill building.

The five-storey steel framed office block was built for the British Overseas Airways Corporation in 1970 – a time when air travel represented the dawn of a brave new futuristic world.

Glasgow Times: BOAC, GlasgowBOAC, Glasgow (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

In the double-height foyer was a long counter in the style of an airport check-in desk. The fact that its neighbours on one of Glasgow’s most prestigious streets have since been stone cleaned makes the building’s black frontage stand out more today than its designers intended.

Loop back towards Sauchiehall Street and you’ll encounter the Premier Inn, which was originally constructed as St Andrew’s House in the early 1960s - the first multi-storey office block in the city centre and still a lofty presence, even next to its multiplex cinema neighbour.

A westward walk along Renfrew Street will take you to the hulking Savoy Centre, whose grey brutalist mass dominates its corner junction.

Glasgow Times: Savoy CentreSavoy Centre (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Built on the site of the Savoy Music Hall (which later became a cinema and was ultimately destroyed by a fire in 1972), the centre offers a glimpse of what might have been had the utilitarian aesthetic of the post-war period been more widely applied.

Continue your walk west and you will reach the Glasgow School of Art campus, most famous, of course, for the influence of a certain Mr Mackintosh.

In the shadow of Mackintosh’s masterwork sits another Brutalist gem – the 1970s Bourdon Building. Imbued with the spirit of the age, this was named after the Art School’s first professor of architectural design, Eugène Bourdon, who was killed at the Battle of the Somme.

Perhaps the most prominent example of modern architecture is the former Stow College of Building and Printing, better known by three simple words: People Make Glasgow.

Recently named as one of the ugliest buildings in the UK, the 13-storey block with the famous hot pink sign could be described as Glasgow’s answer to the Eiffel Tower in that it is seemingly visible from anywhere in the city. The subject of much debate, it is easy to forget that this is a B-listed building of outstanding significance in the architectural community.

Glasgow City Archives looks after the broad documentary heritage of the city, not only those styles or structures that are considered important at a given time.

Much like the place itself, Glasgow’s architectural environment is diverse, fascinating and provocative, and, while it is not always pretty, helps make the city special.