I’m in the Gorbals and the first person I bump into is Monica from New York. She’s visiting Scotland for a while and has come for a wander round the area and as it happens I can tell her she’s standing outside – possibly, potentially, we’ll see – the best building in Scotland. She has a look at it, takes it all in, and tells me she’s “not sure”. Me neither.

Let me walk you round it. Sitting just behind Gorbals library by one of the main roads through the south side, it’s a block of 31 flats, all for social rent, and from the back it’s pretty unremarkable apart from roofs that pitch down towards the middle. The frame-style construction is also pretty normal but it’s clad with light sandstone brick facades, which is a good idea: bricks withstand the Glasgow weather better than the horrible white rendering that was popular in the 80s and 90s.

Now let’s look at the front of the building, which is much more promising. Here we’re faced with what looks like a succession of pillars and is it just me, or are there vibes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, those monolith things built by an unseen extraterrestrial intelligence? The angles are also tricksy and a little unsettling in a good way: are the towers the same height, do they face the same way? They push forward for attention, like sibling rivals.

So do I like it? Yes, I do, I think, and I........

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