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Isi Metzstein, one of Scotland’s architectural greats, dies at 83

One of Scotland’s architectural greats, Isi Metzstein, has died at the age of 83.

Born in Berlin, Isi Metzstein moved to Scotland when he was 11, and subsequently studied architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. Joining the Glasgow based architectural firm Gillespie, Kidd & Coia as an 18-year-old apprentice, Metzstein went on to design, in collaboration with the firm’s young architect Andy MacMillan, many of Scotland’s key Modernist buildings. Most notably they were responsible for many innovative and imaginative church, school and college buildings, including: St. Paul’s Church, Glenrothes, Fife; Bellshill Schools; and Cumbernauld Technical College.

St Peter’s Seminary in Cardross, designed and built in the 1960’s when Metzstein and MacMillan were at the creative helm of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, was deemed important enough to be included on the World Monument Fund list of the 'World's 100 Most Endangered Sites' in 2008. Outside of Scotland, the practice was responsible for high profile projects for the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Hull.

Metzstein was also renowned as an important educator, teaching for many years at Glasgow School of Art, and has been hailed by subsequent generations of architects, many practicing and teaching in the UK today, as being a vital source of inspiration and influence on their work.

In 2007-08 a major Gillespie Kidd and Coia Exhibition, which focused on the period between 1956 and 1987 when Metzstein and MacMillan were genrally considered to be at their most creative and prolific within the practice, was held at The Lighthouse in Glasgow to great critical acclaim. In the same year Metzstein and MacMillan received Honorary Degrees at the Glasgow School of Art and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the RIAS.

Speaking exclusively to www.scottisharchitecture.com at the time, Isi Metzstein described his reaction to these honours: “I’m very grateful and touched. This comes as a high watermark of my career – a career that has never quite stopped. Everything has come together for us in the past year with the recent exhibition and our Honorary Degree and RIAS Lifetime Achievement Awards. There seems to be some kind of conspiracy going on, and I don’t mean that negatively.”

Leading the tributes to Isi Metzstein the current Director of the Glasgow School of Art, Professor Seona Reid, said: “Gillespie, Kidd & Coia’s work under the visionary leadership of Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan represents one of the most significant and influential contributions to post-war British architecture.

“It is not, however, just through the remarkable physical legacy that Isi’s reputation will live on, but through the generations of architectural students whom he inspired. Isi Metzstein was a great architect, a remarkable teacher, and above all a very special person who will be greatly missed.”

RIBA president Angela Brady said Metzstein would be remembered "fondly both as a great architect and educator who was known to be outspoken and had great courage and colour."

St Peter's Seminary © NVA

Designed by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, St Peter’s Seminary is widely regarded as one of the most significant Modernist buildings in Europe. However only 45 years after it was opened, the structure stands as a decaying shell, the victim of a policy change by the Catholic Church in the 1960s.

For the past two and a half years NVA have been working with a number of partners to develop a plan for the Kilmahew woodland which includes the former St Peter’s Seminary - a building of such importance that it was recently added to the the 'World Monuments Fund' list of the ‘World’s 100 Most Endangered Sites’. To read the St Peter's Seminary story in full click on the following link

Main Image: Isi Metzstein FRIAS at the 2008 RIAS Convention where he received the RIAS Lifetime Achievement Award together with Andy MacMillan FRIAS.
Pic by Paul Hackett