It would be interesting to know what the average Clyde shipyard worker of the 1960s would make of the waterfront today.
Aerial shots from that time show the river and its banks alive with docks and shipyards, of cranes, of ships of all sizes. Though they're too small to be visible in the pictures, countless people worked along the waterfront - loading and unloading vessels from all over the world at the docks, or engaged in the thousand-and-one tasks that went into the construction of a ship. The implicit swarm of activity impresses, even now.
Today, of course, it's radically different. Basins have been filled in, cranes dismantled (apart from the Finnieston, or Stobcross, cantilever crane - 'Clyde Navigation Trustees Crane No.7', as its plaque reads), and the great shipyard names - Barclay, Curle, Harland and Wolff, Alex. Stephen - have been swept away. In their place are modern office buildings, new homes, entertainment complexes, new bridges, hotels, restaurants. BBC Scotland and STV are headquartered in buildings that overlook the river. Glasgow Science Centre is here, too.
The wide-ranging regeneration process begun by Glasgow in the late 1980s, encompassing the city centre and the waterfront, is especially evident in the latter.
Culture has played a key part in the regeneration of the waterfront, ever since Glasgow staged a Garden Festival in 1988 - a key moment, it turns out, in the city's reinvention.
The Garden Festival, which was held between April 26 and September 26 was, points out Michael Pacione, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Strathclyde University, the third of five national garden festivals and the only one to be held south of the border.
Writing in his new book, Glasgow Then and Now, he says: "It was the first event of its type to be held in the city in fifty years, since the Empire Exhibition of 1938, and marked the Centenary of Glasgow's first international exhibition, the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry held in Kelvingrove park".
Former Glasgow Garden Festival site to be turned into homes, restaurants and shops
The garden festival, which attracted 4.3m visitors over 152 days, and the 1990 European City of Culture festival did much to improve Glasgow's international image, adds Prof Pacione.
"After the festival", he continues, "the site was expected to be developed for commerce and leisure, with a small Festival Park retained.
"However, the site remained largely unused for more than a decade before development started on the renamed Pacific Quay. The Glasgow Science Centre and the 127m Millennium Observation Tower opened in 2001.
"Close by, the media campus and digital centres, which included new headquarters for BBC Scotland and Scottish Television, opened in 2007, while at the eastern end of the site housing has been built at Mavisbank Gardens adjacent to the Quay leisure complex.
"Other residential developments have followed, along with hotels, office space, cafes, and restaurants.
"Gradually, areas of vacant land, some of which have been unused for more than three decades, are being brought back to productive use with the aim of creating a balanced community with a mix of residential, leisure and employment opportunities".
The startling scale of change on the Glasgow waterfront is well illustrated across the water from the Science Centre.
Beginning at the tail-end of the Seventies, a vast amount of rubble available in the city - from the demolition of the grand old St Enoch Hotel and the excavations for the new Underground system - were ferried down to the disused Queen's Dock at Finnieston to fill in the two main basins.
In the 16 months to March 1979, more than 68,000 lorryloads of varying sizes had been put to use in the gigantic holes. That month, one of the basins was reported to be 67 per cent filled in.
Ideas for the Queen's Dock site had been flowing thick and fast but nothing had been decided. The district council wanted a sports centre. The Scottish Tourist Board was keen on a museum, with a floating museum of Clydebuilt ships. There were suggestions of a trade centre, housing, a maritime museum.
At some point that year, the Queen's Dock site was identified as the ideal location for a purpose-built exhibition and conference centre, the Scottish Development Agency having already voiced its support for such a project. A budget of £36m was set aside for the infilling of the docks, ground stabilisation and road infrastructure.
A management contract was awarded to Bovis Construction Ltd in September 1982. Ground stabilisation works began the following January, and building works in June. The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre opened its doors in September 1985, with the Queen carrying out the official opening in November.
The Glasgow Herald said on the eve of the Queen's visit that the long-awaited SECC was destined to play a key role in the future prosperity of Glasgow and indeed all of Scotland. Firm reservations had already been made for concerts and events for the next two years, and enquiries had bee received for others into the 1990s. In 1986 the new centre, with 1.5m visitors, had already become Scotland's most visited attraction.
Other developments followed: the Forum Hotel (today the Crowne Plaza) in 1989, the Armadillo in 1997, the SSE (now OVO) Hydro in September 2013.
One of the most noticeable culture-centred changes to occur in Glasgow city centre in the last thirty-odd years is the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which was opened in October 1990.
Glasgow Concert Hall, iconic steps and 30 year battle to get it built
The hall was long overdue, so much so that many music lovers despaired of it ever being built; the city's prestigious St Andrew's Halls had been destroyed by fire in October 1962 and Glasgow had been casting around for an adequate replacement ever since.
As Wilma Paterson reflected in The Herald in 1993, three years after the new Concert Hall finally opened, "although a series of makeshift venues ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous kept the cultural life of the city ticking over, much that was world-class was lost to Glasgow for want of a suitably large and properly appointed hall.
"But 1990, the year in which Glasgow was appointed European City of Culture, proved the catalyst, and the Concert Hall, the result of vision, determination, years of planning, and generous public funding was built at what seemed like breakneck speed. Suddenly, almost overnight, Glasgow became the place where everyone from far and wide wanted to come and play.
"And in that first few months of 1990 alone, such world-famous orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Israel Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Bolshoi Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic gave concerts there".
Looking back on 25 years of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Now 33 years old, the Concert Hall remains a key part of Glasgow's, and Scotland's, cultural fabric, regularly attracting some of the biggest names in pop, rock, folk and classical music, and staging the widely acclaimed Celtic Connections festival each January.
* Glasgow Then and Now, by Michael Pacione, is available from Amazon, priced at £22.95
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