Most of the spying I have done in this column has related to history - statues, plaques and monuments that tell us something about Glasgow's past.

There is much to appreciate. Great characters, amazing architecture and a rich social history have all made Glasgow the city we know and love.

But of course the city has changed - dramatically so in recent years. Gone are the shipyards, the heavy industry, many of the tenements that characterised old Glasgow.

And with the new buildings have come many examples of modern art, all with their own significance and meaning.

A few weeks ago I highlighted Scotway House, a former shipyard drawing office on the banks of the River Kelvin.

Only a few hundred yards away stands a striking piece of architecture from a different era.

The 19ft statue known as Rise was built in 2008 beside the Glasgow Harbour flats on the site of the old Meadowside Granaries on the banks of the Clyde.

Andy Scott, the man responsible for the Heavy Horse statue beside the M8 motorway and the Kelpies at the Falkirk Wheel, was the sculptor who created this angel-like figure, depicting the head and body of a woman with propeller-like arms.

It is supposed to represent progress rising from the ashes of the city's industrial past and was constructed by covering a steel frame with thousands of small rectangular pieces of galvanised steel, welded together.

The area where the flats now stand has in interesting history. It used to be the home ground of Partick Thistle but the club was forced to move to Firhill when building work started on the granaries and the adjacent Meadowside Quay.

The original granary was 13 storeys high. It was extended in 1937 and two new granaries were added in the 1960s.

In the heyday of Clyde shipbuilding, the complex was the largest grain store in the UK and the largest brick building in Europe.

Andy Scott, who works from a canal-side base in Maryhill, has become one of the most successful figurative artists in Scotland in the past decade.

He works in galvanised steel, bronze and fibre glass and his other sculptures include the Arria statue at Cumbernauld and the Ibrox Disaster memorial of John Greig at Ibrox Park.

Perhaps in 100 years time someone will "eye-spy" this structure as a piece of history.