Charing Cross Mansions, Glasgow

This curved block of mansion flats is the city's best-known tenement block. The steep Mansard roof gives it a distinctly French elegance. John James Burnet designed the building in 1889 and it is possibly the greatest of his works. The tall tower in the middle has its own balcony and cast-iron railings. The centerpiece is a baroque clock, decorated with signs of the zodiac by William Birnie-Rhind. Above the clock, a female figure holds a hammer and leans on a wheel. The initials RS & S appear a few times as the building was originally for warehouse men Robert Simpson and Sons. Luckily it escaped the devastating sweep through the city that paved the way for the M8 motorway, which now glides effortlessly past this timeless classic.