Glasgow: Britain’s Renaissance City : ‘The Big Smoke’ has gone on a binge of artistic and social rediscovery.

Employing just the trace of condescension for which they are so famous, some Englishmen still refer to Glasgow as “The Big Smoke.”

(Some Glaswegians, with the forthrightness they are famous for, still refer to Englishmen as snobs.)

But the English--and the rest of the world--are beating a dead horse. Glasgow, the port city that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution (it was Britain’s great Victorian metropolis, the “second city” of the Empire), was bypassed by progress years ago; the dust, quite literally, has settled. The thriving shipyards along the Clyde River, where the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth 2 were built, are history. The mammoth foundries that turned out the world’s sturdiest locomotives are long gone.

Glasgow has gone on a binge of rediscovery--artistically, socially and environmentally. It is Britain’s renaissance city of the late 20th Century.

Because gone, as well, are The Gorbals, a notorious inner-city slum area. The postwar mania to make Glasgow a greener, more livable place gave rise to the verdant pocket parks that dot the city. The soot and grime have been sandblasted off the red and yellow sandstone to reveal terraces, galleries and concert halls of gleaming magnificence.

Glaswegians, a tough, loyal, independent and industrious lot, have, in recent years, also adopted a cultural bent. With good reason: The great hall of the civic Art Gallery and Museum, dominated by a magnificent Lewis organ, is stunning (as is what is billed as Britain’s finest civic collection of national and continental art: Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt).

The concrete legacy of native Scot and art nouveau pioneer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, especially his re-created home at Glasgow University’s Hunterian Art Gallery, is classically simple and simply classic. Glasgow also is home to the Scottish Opera and Ballet, the British Broadcasting Corp. Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish Orchestra. Glasgow was named by the European Economic Community as the European City of Culture in 1990, joining such company as Florence, Paris and Athens.

Multistory shopping malls opened, complete with California-style food courts. Restaurants sassed up their menus. Performing artists put Glasgow on their touring itineraries. In more ways than one, Glasgow had cleaned up its act.

And the bottom line, for visitors, is that Glasgow today is a sleeper city. Not in terms of bargains (a British pound is a Scottish pound, and it’s battering the dollar), but in terms of discovery.

Take One Devonshire Gardens, for example.

Set in three stately Victorian mansions--small mansions--in Glasgow’s west end, the One Devonshire hotel is a rich dose of ritz in a city that doesn’t flaunt many pretentions. It’s an anachronism among the smaller hotels and bed and breakfasts. My room, No. 2, was the size of two or three Manhattan apartments, with giant bay windows, a canopied four-poster bed, an oversized Victorian tub embellished with brass and porcelain fittings, a plush maroon sofa. Everything was plush maroon. On top of this, there was the drawing-room-cum-cocktail lounge, the $60 prix-fixe dinner, the Scottish salmon for breakfast, the assortment of single-malt Scotches for nightcaps.

And the piece de resistance: The sommelier who brought me a glass of Chardonnay was named Johnny Walker. (“Sir, would you prefer Red or Black with dinner?”)

Lest you get the idea that Glasgow reeks with wealth, be advised it’s mainly big splurgers and fabulous people such as Luciano Pavarotti and Greta Scacchi who sup and stay at One Devonshire, where a double room starts at $270 a night. One Devonshire is very much a black-silk tie on a blue-collar city.

One-fifth of Scotland’s 5 million people live in Glasgow. Before the population spread out into the suburbs, which now stretch in all directions from the Clyde River, they lived atop each other, in four- and five-story walk-ups with common toilets. When the city fathers decided that the tenements, which were breeding grounds for tuberculosis and violence, had to be destroyed, they erected ugly high-rise towers in the 1950s and ‘60s that were nearly as offensive as the slums they replaced. Physically, the Victoriana of Glasgow is its most impressive aspect. The building facades on street after street present stunning impressions of heroic 19th-Century architecture.

Culturally as well, Glasgow is all over the place. Start your tour in George Square, marked by a pillar reminiscent of London’s Trafalgar Square, with a statue of Scotland’s hero, Sir Walter Scott, perched atop. George Square was the heart of the Merchant City when Glasgow was a booming center for the tobacco trade between Britain and America (a profitable business for the Scots that collapsed with the onset of the Revolutionary War). On one side is the ornate City Chambers building, opened in 1888 by Queen Victoria and billed as the largest brick building in Europe. The ornate marble and alabaster staircase in the central hall screams opulence and reflects a time when British Empire meant power.

A short way to the east is the crusty Gothic Cathedral. Rooted in the 12th Century and featuring both an upper and lower church, the cathedral reeks of historical significance, with its exemplary carvings, tombs, woodwork and embroideries. The exterior, scoured by time, has a grungy medieval character: a neat photo opportunity if you just pass by.

For Mackintosh fans, the first stop should be his immaculately restored home at the university’s Hunterian Art Gallery. The museum is a treasure trove for devotees of James McNeill Whistler, housing more than 70 of his moody, evocative paintings.

The Mackintosh House, a sort of annex, contains both original furniture and replicas from the influential designer’s nearby home. The colors are austere bordering on frigid--it’s hard to imagine that anybody actually lived in these surroundings. (At the Hunterian, as at all Glasgow museums, admission is free and donations are welcomed.)

Less esoteric but much fun for a morning or afternoon is the Museum of Transport, directly across from the Art Museum in Kelvingrove. Impressive displays map out Glasgow’s role in the ship and locomotive industry.

The ship models, such as the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, and the re-created Glasgow street scene, are especially nostalgic. For motoring enthusiasts, there’s a mint ’73 Volkswagen Beetle to covet and a venerable and ugly Citroen 2CV, the Deux Chevaux .

Less cosmic than culture--but no less necessary--are some tactics for negotiating a stay in Glasgow.

Because the downtown area is a grid, driving (on the left) is no more a hassle than it would be in any other moderately busy city. The bright yellow Strathclyde buses run often, and there’s a vest-pocket underground that serves the central city. Glasgow’s cheery tourist board, just a block from George Square at 35 St. Vincent St., can provide all manner of maps and guides, currency exchange, theater bookings, a list of hotels and B&Bs.;

Pub lunches are recommended if you can escape the pull of the McDonald’s and the Burger Kings. The Drum and Monkey pub is dimly lit but all class, the place for a pint. For a post-concert nightcap, the duplex Pot Still at 154 Hope St. is wonderfully pubby and clubby and features one of the best selections of single-malt whisky on this green isle. The menu lists 157 selections and still counting.

Rogano, at 11 Exchange Place (local phone 24-4055), has been one of the hot restaurants in town. Its upstairs lounge mimics the Art Deco ambience of the Queen Mary, which was built close by; the downstairs is cozy and the specialties well-prepared, if not awesome.

For visitors who are London-bound, the shopping scene pales in comparison, although a stroll through the Princes Mall on the pedestrian-only Buchanan Street offers a tidy time-killer. There’s a well-stocked Waterstone’s bookshop in the mall, and nearby are Marks & Spencer for biscuits and good-value UK woolens, and Frasers, a branch of Harrods department store.

GUIDEBOOK

Rediscovering Glasgow

Getting there: British Airways, United, American and Northwest fly directly to Glasgow from LAX. The round-trip fare is about $940 with 30-day advance purchase. These airlines are also offering a special fare of $638, but it must be purchased by March 31 and is restricted to travel in April, May and September.

Where to stay: For lodging with character, try the One Devonshire Gardens, a town mansion, at 1 Devonshire Gardens, 001-44-041-339-2001; double room starts at $270 a night. Or the Cathedral House, seven rooms above a pub at 28 Cathedral Square; about $65 per person for a double, including breakfast. (Owner Graham Walsh knows how to please Americans: He used to run a Mexican restaurant near Detroit’s Tiger Stadium.) Glasgow also has its share of high-rise hotels, including the Hospitality Inn in the city’s center. The new 20-story Glasgow Hilton, under construction on Bishop Street, is to open this fall.

For more information: Contact the British Tourist Authority, 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 628-3525.

The Glasgow Tourist Board, 35 St. Vincent St., can arrange accommodations in hotels and bed and breakfast inns. From U.S. phones, call 011-44-041-204-4400.