Royal Exchange Square is a public square in the City of Glasgow in Scotland. The square is situated at the junction of Queen Street with Ingram Street. It is also easily accessible from Buchanan Street, through two prominent archways on the West side of the square.The square is a landmark that attracts many visitors due to the central building which houses the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, (also known as the 'GoMA') and the humorous Duke of Wellington statue.
Along the sides of the square are lots of open air cafés and restaurants. The Square is lit up with a large overhead net of lighting between the Gallery of Modern Art and surrounding buildings. The lighting was originally only activated around the Winter season as part of the city's Christmas decorations, but due to being highly favoured by the citizens of Glasgow it remains, to this day, as a permanent feature.
At the Queen Street entrance there is a statue of Duke of Wellington which usually has a traffic cone placed on his head. This was originally a joke by youngsters, but it is now encouraged by the public to leave the cone intact. The statue has become a representation of simple Glaswegian humour and is favoured by many citizens and tourists who have seen it. However, some tourists have conveyed disappointment upon visiting the statue to discover that the cone has been taken down.
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Famous quotes containing the words royal, exchange and/or square:
“Not to these shores she came! this other Thrace,
Environ barbarous to the royal Attic;
How could her delicate dirge run democratic,
Delivered in a cloudless boundless public place
To an inordinate race?”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)