Jack Coia
| Gillespie, Kidd & Coia | |
|---|---|
Main chapel at St Peter's Seminary
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| Key architects | Jack Coia Thomas Warnett Kennedy Isi Metzstein Andy MacMillan |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Dissolved | 1987 |
| Location | Glasgow |
| Buildings |
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| Awards | RIBA Royal Gold Medal |
Gillespie, Kidd & Coia were a Scottish architectural firm famous for their application of modernism in churches and universities, as well as at St Peter's Seminary in Cardross. Though founded in 1927, it is for their work in the post-war period that they are best known. The firm was wound up in 1987.
In 2007, the firm was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at The Lighthouse, Glasgow.
The Scottish architect James Salmon (1805–1888) established a practice in Glasgow in 1830. John Gaff Gillespie (1870–1926) was hired in 1891, when the practice was known as James Salmon & Son, and was run by the son, William Forrest Salmon. The practice name was changed in 1903 to Salmon & Son & Gillespie, with James Salmon (1873–1924), grandson of the founder, and John Gaff Gillespie as partners. William Alexander Kidd (1879–1928) joined the firm in 1898, becoming a partner, with Gillespie, in 1918 (James Salmon had left the firm in 1913). Kidd became sole partner on Gillespie's death in 1926.
In 1915, the 16-year-old Giacomo Antonio ("Jack") Coia (1898–1981) joined the firm of Gillespie & Kidd as an apprentice. Coia was born in Wolverhampton, England, to Italian parents, and was raised in Glasgow. In 1923, he left for travel to Europe and work in London, returning as a partner in 1927, at Kidd’s request following Gillespie’s death. Kidd himself died in 1928 and Coia thus inherited the practice by then known as Gillespie, Kidd & Coia.
At the time Coia took over, the practice had little work. Coia took a teaching position at the Mackintosh School of Architecture within the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), and began to seek new clients. After approaching Donald Mackintosh, the Archbishop of Glasgow, he secured the practice's first commission for a new church in 1931. The Roman Catholic Church would remain the firm's principal client until the early 1970s. In 1938, Thomas Warnett Kennedy became a partner with Coia, contributing to designs for St Peter in Chains, Ardrossan, and the Roman Catholic pavilion for the Glasgow Empire Exhibition. The practice also collaborated with Thomas S. Tait on the Exhibition masterplan.
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