Ex­hib­i­tions about ar­chi­tec­ture have a tendency to run dry - buildings don’t, after all, fit inside other buildings, leaving only the two-di­men­sion­al dis­ap­point­ment of pho­to­graphy, and plans that are illegible to the layman.

This one, a long-overdue survey of Andy MacMillan and Izi Metztein’s groun­d­break­ing, in­flu­en­ti­al work for Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, is different, breathing life into archival materials.

The show begins at the beginning of MacMillan and Metztein’s twinned careers, with an in-depth study of St Paul’s at Glen­rothes. A sudden break with Gillespie, Kidd & Coia’s century-old practice, the church, built by the two ar­chi­tects while both were still in their twenties, is a perfect in­tro­duc­tion, con­tain­ing as it does the themes - deep, square plans, the radical use of natural light - that were to run through the pair’s practice. A brace of eight drawings - including an abstract plan for floor tiling that points to MacMillan and Metztein’s influence on con­tem­por­ary artists, not least Beck’s Futures winner Toby Paterson, who has designed the ex­hib­i­tion space with Col­lect­ive Ar­chi­tec­ture - are matched with maquettes, both being glued together by a digital animation that slowly animates plans and cross-sections until they form a re­p­res­ent­a­tion of the completed church. Add a letter detailing the di­f­fi­culties in raising funds for the project, and visitors are left with a clear, easily-grasped im­pres­sion of the church’s journey from blueprint to building.

Next comes a timeline, providing context with images of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia buildings running along the wall, and a display under glass that, through ar­chi­tec­tur­al drawings, journal article and pho­to­graphs of buildings around Europe connects the Glasgow duo to their con­tem­por­ar­ies and forebears. It’s a simple cur­at­or­i­al tactic, but grants an immediate grasp of the interplay between MacMillan and Metztein’s and the wider ar­chi­tec­tur­al world, making it possible to see at a glance how they absorbed in­flu­ences - Le Corbusier, obviously, Mack­in­tosh, less so - tempering the hard tenets of European Modernism, and taking advantage of the post-war political will to build, but operating at one remove thanks to the steady stream of com­mis­sions from the Roman Catholic church, which allowed them to sidestep the stric­tures of housing projects and granted the pair a freedom to ex­per­i­ment.

Then, a vitrine packed with ephemera takes us inside the ar­chi­tects’ studio, deftly revealing another key to the de­vel­op­ment of MacMillan and Metztein: the hot-house atelier system put in place by senior partner Jack Coia, an open way of working that allowed for the at­mo­sphere of col­l­ab­or­a­tion and co-operation that resulted in a sort of ongoing ar­chi­tec­tur­al con­ver­sa­tion between Izzi, Andy and their col­leagues.

What follows is the exhibit’s strongest point, a guide to MacMillan and Metztein’s work, divided into themed sections.

For most of us, unversed in ar­chi­tec­ture as a technical practice, buildings seem to simply be, things to be ap­pre­ci­ated aes­thet­ic­ally and emo­tion­ally as they are used - we in­st­inc­t­ively awed by a high ceiling, say, or happily unaware that, in easily finding our way from A to B, we are taking advantage of a carefully plotted cir­cu­la­tion system.

This second section of the exhibit comes, then, as a series of re­v­el­a­tions. Il­lus­trat­ing each theme in turn, the wall texts and drawings take what might at first seem like rather dull aspects of MacMillan and Metztein’s working method, and turn them into minor miracles. The portion devoted to Plan & Promenade shows how the approach to a building impacts on its interior, ef­fort­lessly em­phas­ising the passage from secular to sacred worlds in the case of the churches, and high­lights MacMillan and Metztein’s devotion to deep plans divided into tiers. Under the banner of In­te­g­rated Structure, a phrase like ‘load bearing wall’ takes on a magical air, as the secrets of open, light-filled interiors are revealed.

There are oc­ca­sion­al lapses into arcane ar­chi­tec­ture-speak - I’m not entirely sure what is meant, for example, by the ‘full in­te­g­ra­tion of spaces with requisite room variety’ that one building is said to display - but for the most part, this is a display that not only fosters a deeper un­der­stand­ing of the buildings at hand, but of ar­chi­tec­ture itself.

Down­s­tairs, we move from the thematic to the specific, with detailed surveys of 21 MacMiil­lan/Metzsetin buildings. Without the steady in­tro­duc­tion and education on the upper level, this might have suited dedicated ar­chi­tec­ture buffs more than the general public, but, with the vo­c­ab­u­lary of the themed section to hand, each set of drawings and models is open to ex­plor­a­tion.

Add a pair of films, both featuring MacMiil­lan and Metzsetin engaged in pas­sion­ate con­ver­sa­tion about their practice, in­flu­ences and counter-in­flu­ences, and Gillespie, Kidd & Coia: Ar­chi­tec­ture 1956-1987 becomes a truly great show, one that is dense enough to reward multiple visits, and likely to turn those with a passing interest in ar­chi­tec­ture into devotees of the art. It is, too, an ex­hib­i­tion tinged with sadness: while most of MacMiil­lan and Metzsetin’s creations continue to be used, lived in and loved, much of their legacy - not least St. Peter’s Seminary at Cardross - has been, un­for­giv­ably, abandoned.

This review was first published in The Herald on November 16th, 2007.