© McAteer Photography for The Glasgow School of Art, 2007

It has been announced that Isi Metzstein has died. The respected Scottish architect passed  away on Monday 10th of January 2012, at 83 years of age. Over his career as an architect Metzstein worked extensively with Andy MacMillian at Gillespie Kidd & Coia (GK&C). Towards the end of his career he took up a teaching post at the Glasgow School of Art.

Medzstein was born in 1928 in Berlin, moving with his family to Scotland at the age of 11. As a student he met MacMillian and was then hired by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. His lasting partnership with MacMillian produced many modernist churches, schools and colleges and culminated in the duo being given the RIBA Annie Spink award in 2008 for excellence in architectural education. Medzstein won a string of other awards including the Royal Scottish Academy Gold Medal for Architecture.

He was an honorary fellow of both RIBA and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS). His best known work is St Peter's Roman Catholic Seminary at Cardoss in Argyll, completed in 1966.

Professor Seona Reid, Director of The Glasgow School of Art, said: "Gillespie Kidd and Coia's work under the visionary leadership of Isi Metzstein and Andy MacMillan, former Head of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, 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."