Gallery of Modern Art

The Gallery of Modern Art is Glasgow's civic contemporary art gallery, and it occupies a building that was never meant to hold art. The core of it went up in 1778 as the townhouse of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a Glasgow Tobacco Lord whose fortune came out of the triangular slave trade. Glasgow District Libraries bought the building for 105,000 pounds in 1949 and moved Stirling's Library in during 1954, along with the Library of Patents and the Commercial Library. Monday–Thursday 10:00–17:00; Friday 11:00–17:00; Saturday 10:00–17:00; Sunday 11:00–17:00. Open seven days a week; regular closure days: none.

Glasgow Life describes GoMA as four galleries, a library and a gallery shop, and the four are worth taking in order because they are not variations on one another. Gallery 1, the big hall on the ground floor, takes the temporary show. Galleries 2, 3 and 4 upstairs carry longer-running displays drawn from the city's own holdings, with CommonSpace given over to collaborative work made with community groups and artists, including the GoMA Youth Group. Open seven days a week; regular closure days: none. General admission is free; donations are welcome.

Glasgow Life publishes no suggested visit length for GoMA, so the figure on this page is a judgement rather than a quoted one. An hour covers it properly. The gallery is four rooms and a pair of balcony spaces stacked over three floors of a single building, the labels are short, and there is no route to follow or timed section to queue for, so the pace is set entirely by how long a visitor stands in front of things. General admission is free; donations are welcome.

GoMA is open seven days a week and there is no weekly closing day, but the opening time moves. Monday to Thursday and Saturday it opens at 10:00; on Friday and Sunday it does not open until 11:00. Arriving before 15:30 leaves room to see everything without hurrying. Monday–Thursday 10:00–17:00; Friday 11:00–17:00; Saturday 10:00–17:00; Sunday 11:00–17:00. There is no level access into the venue. Wheelchair and pram access is available to all public areas using lifts. Accessible toilets are on the lower-ground and top floors. Guide and assistance dogs are welcome.

Entry is free. Glasgow Life states Free Entry on the venue page and adds that donations are welcome, taken either at the venue or online, and the gallery's own printed guide has said for years that entry to GoMA has always been free. That means the calculation a visitor normally has to make here does not exist. General admission is free; donations are welcome. There is no level access into the venue. Wheelchair and pram access is available to all public areas using lifts. Accessible toilets are on the lower-ground and top floors.

GoMA stands on Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow G1 3AH, at the top of Queen Street in the middle of the city centre, and no car is needed to reach it. Glasgow Life points visitors at Traveline Scotland to plan a journey. The gallery telephone is 0141 287 3050. The gallery is at Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow G1 3AH. Glasgow Queen Street and Glasgow Central railway stations are both within walking distance. Buchanan Street is the nearest subway station, and Buchanan Bus Station is less than a 10-minute walk away. City-centre buses stop within a few minutes' walk of the gallery.

The first trap is the gallery's own paperwork. The downloadable GoMA floor plan still lists a Thursday opening until 20:00, and the venue page says Thursday closes at 17:00 like every other day. The venue page is the current one; the leaflet is old enough to point at a website Glasgow Museums no longer uses. There is no level access into the venue. Accessible toilets are on the lower-ground and top floors. Guide and assistance dogs are welcome. A British Sign Language and International Sign welcome video is available. Baby-changing facilities and free Wi-Fi are available.

Glasgow Life Museums allow photography, filming and sketching, and the rules are published rather than left to a warden's judgement. Hand-held cameras and phones are fine for personal, non-commercial use. Selfie sticks, tripods, monopods, gimbals and any added lighting are not allowed anywhere. Photographing other visitors requires their consent, and children outside a visitor's own group must not be photographed at all. Recording for a podcast needs permission in advance. Guide and assistance dogs are welcome. A British Sign Language and International Sign welcome video is available. Baby-changing facilities and free Wi-Fi are available.