Imagine an era without makeover shows on television, or glossy magazines to peruse at home. When architecture was something the ordinary person didn't dabble in, and a house was simply four walls and a roof to keep the rain out.
Then along came Basil Spence, a flamboyant, enthusiastic designer - who wanted to know what the public thought about his buildings, even if it wasn't always positive.
Born in India in 1907, he arrived in Edinburgh as a schoolboy and later studied at Edinburgh College of Art.
He had a practice in Edinburgh, and raised his family there - which is why they decided after his death to leave his entire archive to the city.
It has taken 11 curators at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland several years to catalogue the collection, and select the exhibition currently on display at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh.
There's a whole room devoted to his break-through project - Coventry Cathedral.
The building, desecrated by German bombs, became a potent symbol of a Britain rebuilding itself post-war.
Modernist lines
Spence's proposal - one of more than 200 - was the only one to fully incorporate the ruins of the old cathedral into the new building.
But it was controversial.
To traditionalists, its simple modernist lines rising in grey concrete above the ruins, were an outrage.
But it won the competition in 1951, and in time, a string of plaudits.
As well as a detailed model of the building, the exhibition includes a section of the original roof, and designs by the artist Graham Sutherland for the massive tapestry which hangs above the cathedral's altar.
Of course, modernist design wasn't everyone's cup of tea - and as its most high profile proponent, Sir Basil Spence had his fair share of critics.
But that didn't stop him appearing on television and radio, and at public events, defending modernist architecture.
To him, it was simply an extension of the European trend for clean, simple lines using the new practical materials available post war.
When he designed the Hutchesontown C high-rise in the Gorbals area of Glasgow in the 1960s, he envisaged open, airy apartments in the sky.
His sketches - included in the exhibition - show spacious verandahs, and European style piazzas.
For many people, they were a happy contrast to the cramped tenements they'd lived in before.
For others, they were cold, grey rooms, isolating them further from the communities they'd left behind.
Some argued the construction was to blame, others the council for failing to maintain them.
Fresh perspective
Whatever the reason, Spence's dream flats had become a derelict concrete jungle by 1993 when, with local consensus, they were torn down.
As the tide turned against modernism, the public turned against Spence. Increasingly his public appearances saw him under fire from angry consumers.
His final project - the new Home Office building in London - was hardly his most successful, dogged by red tape and public criticism.
He died in 1976, just months short of his 70th birthday.
But his family - who gifted the entire archive to Scotland - hope history will be kinder to Sir Basil Spence.
And that the new exhibition will offer a fresh perspective on the architect's process.
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