CLYDE TIDE TURNING

Flash forward two months to Friday of this week and the Queens are safe and shining in their new berths – massive glass cases in the heart of the Riverside, among 3,000 objects which will be on public display when the museum opens on 21 June. Appropriately enough, they are beside a floor-to-ceiling window which looks out on to the river. Over on the south bank, the BAE shipyard in Govan clangs and echoes with the construction of the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. So past, present and future meet on the Clyde.

The Riverside Museum has been under construction since 2007. Glasgow has watched it rise from the riverbank. The building is the concept of Zaha Hadid, the visionary architect whose Maggie’s Centre in Kirkcaldy was, in 2006, the first of her buildings constructed in the UK. At one time she was infamous for designing astonishing structures which were never built; indeed, the in-house engineer at BAM, the company responsible for constructing the Riverside, declared initially that the museum was unbuildable. Yet here it is. Or rather, here she is. There is something undeniably feminine about the place.

Seen from above, the Riverside resembles pleated fabric or a figure poised to spring across the water. The colour is lustrous silver or sombre grey, depending on whether the sun is beaming down on the 24,000 bespoke zinc panels. At ground level, approaching from either Partick or Govan, the most striking aspects are the zig-zagging peaks and valleys of the roof. The highest of the five peaks rises to 40 metres (over 131ft) and was dubbed Cathedral Ridge by the construction workers who grafted there.

The design is supposed to bring to mind both the spires of Glasgow and the river’s waves, but it makes me think of the signals of an electrocardiogram, taking the erratic pulse of the city. There is an idea that siting the museum here will bring the Clyde, somewhat abandoned and forgotten, back into the consciousness of the citizens. As one insider put it: “£74 million is a small price to pay for the regeneration of the river.”

There is no way, in the present economic climate, that a project on this scale, especially a cultural project, would be approved were it to come before the council today. It appears on the riverbank, therefore, as jetsam from a more prosperous and hopeful age.

From opening day, a passenger ferry will operate between Water Row on the south bank and a pontoon at the Riverside, making Govan the underground station closest to the museum. But on the Riverside Estate, the scheme directly across the Clyde, there are some who balk at the cost, are cynical about the idea that the museum will give their district a boost, and speculate wryly that the extensive landscaping on their side of the waterfront will merely give the junkies and alkies a more pleasant place to sit.

Others on the scheme, in which the streets are named after Robert Napier, the “Father of Clyde shipbuilding”, feel more positive. “Come away in,” says Frank Hughes, 68, a retired shipyard worker, leading the way through to his kitchen, which looks out on to the museum. “It’s so dramatic,” he says with some pride. “I can’t wait to take the ferry and see inside.”

Does he think the museum can help regenerate the river on which he worked? “I hope so, or the Clyde’s finished.”

Opinion is split locally on the appearance of the Riverside, which is what many folk see when they open their curtains in the morning, but those who do not like Hadid’s design are placated by the fact that the handsome 19th century sailing ship, the Glenlee, is now anchored directly in front of the museum. Its masts and the Riverside’s jagged ridges are visible over the red roofs of the scheme. At night, through the dark glass, the museum’s cold-cathode strip-lights appear as great shining arcs promising that soon, very soon now, the Govanites – and the rest of the public – will be able to walk in through the doors.

And what will they see once inside? The immediate impression is one of colour. The interior is painted pistachio green. The space feels vast and flowing as there are no visible supporting columns. Much of the weight of the roof is held up by its own twists and undulations. This place has the wow factor. Pretty much the first thing you notice is a tank engine dangling over the edge from the second floor. Other spectacles include the “infinite velodrome” – a circle of racing bikes suspended from the ceiling, and a line of classic cars coiling steeply up the side of a wall in imitation of the Rest And Be Thankful.

More than twice as many objects are on show in the Riverside than in the old Museum of Transport. It is possible to actually get inside many of the larger vehicles, including a couple of trams, which will be a particular novelty for visitors from Edinburgh. Look out, too, for the largest object in the collection, a true behemoth, the giant locomotive, built in Glasgow in the 1940s, shipped over to work in South Africa, and eventually rescued from a scrapyard by the curators.

There is also a splendid new version of the old-fashioned street which was a much-loved part of the former museum. In the Riverside it represents the period 1900-1930 and includes a pub and pawnshop. Best of all is the Rendezvous Café, built using the actual fittings from the café of that name, which stood on the corner of Duke Street and Sword Street, Dennistoun, between 1922 and 1985. Inside, it’s all wooden booths and stained glass panels. The café was founded by Giovanni Togneri, who moved to Glasgow from Barga at the age of 15 and died in 1982. Seeing it reborn in the Riverside will be especially moving for his granddaughter, Alma Reid, 43, who grew up in the shop and worked there from the age of 12 until it closed. She remembers the sweet smell of the ice-cream – strictly vanilla, mind – and the whispered sweet nothings of the winchin’ couples.

“It means the absolute world to me that the café is in there,” says Reid. “My Nonno lived for that café. He put his blood and guts into it. Now it’s a piece of history that will never be lost. I’m sure he’s looking down, smiling away.”

The Riverside is full of tales. While the old museum placed emphasis on the manufacture and operation of the vehicles, the focus now is just as much on the people who used them. Riveting stories rather than stories of riveting. Video displays tell these personal narratives through interviews. The curators have gone to extraordinary lengths in their research and presentation. A smashed-up Triumph motorcycle lies encircled by six screens on which loops a recreation of the crash and aftermath, filmed using the actual paramedics, police and doctors who attended the scene and treated the injured driver. The idea is to recognise that one of the things people feel about transport is fear of what happens when it goes badly wrong. The Riverside isn’t just about nuts, bolts and grease, but blood, sweat and tears.

Storytelling was always an important part of visiting the Museum of Transport, where grandparents would tell their grandchildren about the shoogle of the trams, but now it has been made an explicit part of the design. The curators are aware that the generation who travelled in many of the older forms of transport will not be around forever, and so the collecting of their stories, before it is too late, has become at least as important as acquiring particular objects.

Bob James, 58, is emblematic in this respect. He is a volunteer tour guide at Riverside, but also a retired fireman whose uniform is on display, as is the Leyland fire engine in which he travelled to blazes around Glasgow, known then as Tinderbox City. James joined the Glasgow Fire Service in 1972 and left in 1996 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Following two years during which his confidence was at rock bottom and he barely left the house, he began volunteering at the old Museum of Transport. It was his way back into society and the place clearly means a great deal to him. And he is important to the new Riverside. It is extraordinary to be able to visit a museum and hear about firefighting from one who was there in the smoke, the roar and the heat. “It’s not only the history of the fire engine, it’s my wee moment in history,” he says. “I feel quite honoured.”

Walking around the Riverside in the company of those involved in its creation, the sense of anticipation is so electric it might power many of the vehicles on display. Project director Lawrence Fitzgerald has spent the best part of a decade working towards this moment. “Our public are worth this,” he says, giving an expansive gesture which takes in both the magnificence of the building itself and the treasures it contains. It is anticipated that the museum could attract 800,000 people in its first 12 months, but I wouldn’t be surprised if visitor numbers exceed that.

Certainly, the museum deserves to be popular. It is striking and intelligent and it has soul. It sits on what was once the site of the Pointhouse Shipyard, where they built the Waverley. Pointhouse closed in 1962 and so many of the other yards are away now too. On 21 June, however, this bank will witness a launch of a different kind when the Riverside – a Clydebuilt museum, no less – welcomes the people on board. For now, though, the work goes on, the rain goes on, and the cold dark river must wait just a little longer for its moment in the sun.