Junction of West Regent Street and Renfield Street

Putting on the Glasgow style in sandstone, brick and granite

Lending itself perfectly to the maxim ‘look up when in Glasgow’, the meeting of Renfield Street and West Regent Street offers extraordinary variety in the architecture of four ‘flamboyant’ buildings.

Karin Currie joins Niall to talk us round the contrasting materials at one of Glasgow’s most striking junctions: red brick, red sandstone, blonde sandstone and white granite in what’s left of the old Odeon Cinema.

The buildings present a fine display of the diversity of Glasgow’s architectural style. We circle round the Scottish Baronial grandeur of the Business Chambers, intricately detailed Glasgow Baroque of the red sandstone Castle Chambers, virtuoso red brick (unusual in Glasgow) of the former Prudential Assurance, and finally the handsome ‘nighttime architecture’ of the once glistening Art Deco Odeon. The old cinema, which began life as the Paramount in 1934, was the first building to introduce neon lighting in the city.

All this at one remarkable crossroads.