Words: Adair Crumpton

Pictures: Chris Donnelly, Shay McCann, Sandra Socko

Now, this is a little bit unusual. In fact, the tale of the BOAC building in Glasgow takes in Nazis, refugees and families torn asunder.

The BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) building in Buchanan Street was designed by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, with Andy MacMillan and Isi Metzstein as primary architects. Gillespie, Kidd & Coia was a prestigious firm when it came to modernism architecture in Scotland with the architects and firm held in high regard.

Andy Macmillan and Isi Metztstein were both award-winning architects and were known for their work across Scotland, mainly working on modernist churches. They were close partners together in the Gillespie, Kidd & Coia firm from their first design on St Pauls, Glenrothes, in 1956 till 1987 with their conversion of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford.

Isi Metzstein was born in Berlin to Polish Jewish parents and was shipped to the UK after the Nazis burned down his school. Once he arrived in the UK and separated from his family he arrived in Hardgate, Clydebank. He reunited with his four siblings later on in life. Andy Macmillan was born in Maryhill, Glasgow, and lived the majority of his life in Glasgow as an architect, educator, writer and broadcaster inspiring many with the projects he took part in throughout his career.

Andy Macmillan, from 1973 to 1994, served as the head of the Mackintosh School of Architecture. Metzstein also taught throughout their partnership, starting in 1969 teaching at the Glasgow School of Art then moving on to the University of Edinburgh in 1984 and finally back to Glasgow to teach in 1991. The pair passed during the 2010s with Metzstein aged 83 and MacMillan aged 86.

The offices of BOAC were constructed in the timeframe of 1968 to 1970. The structure is framed with a distinctive copper cladding that wraps around the building's exposed sides that have beautifully aged with the copper weathering over time.

The modernist Le Corbusier inspired aesthetic often made by Macmillan and Metzstein is shown in the elevations of the project with the copper cladding emphasising the structure of the faces of the building with its hard rigid lines surrounding the windows and the innovative use of copper.

The exterior facing material gives the building a strong feeling when glancing at it with its metallic, dense and truly unique appearance along its long and narrow body that it nestles into Buchannan Street.

The structure was refurbished and partially reclad in 2007 to maintain the building as a historical landmark in honour of its aesthetic appeal and the quality of the workmanship.

The building's primary use today is for retail on the bottom ground floor and the three floors above dressed in the copper cladding being used for office spaces as in the past for BOAC.