OLD scamp, old teller of lies, old maker of wonders." This is Brendan Gill's summing up of his hero and friend, Frank Lloyd Wright, in the witty book, Many Masks. Gill tells the story, warts and all, of the wily genius who spent a lifetime constructing, not just buildings, but a mythology for himself.

Michael Scott may not be in the same league as FLW, but in terms of self-belief and ego, there are many parallels. A similar biography of Scott has still to be attempted. Up to now most of the writing on him has been adulatory to the point of reverence, and his various pronouncements that it was he who brought modern architecture to Ireland have hardly been questioned.

What Dorothy Walker and Gandon Editions have done is to assemble skilfully a series of recorded interviews with Scott when he was in his 70s. These are arranged in chronological order, well illustrated by photographs of personalities, buildings and drawings, and the end result is a fascinating portrait of the life and times of an exceptional character.

Like much oral history, however, this highly colourful account is the work of a master storyteller, and while it is likely to entertain hugely many who knew him, it will undoubtedly infuriate others; although those most likely to be apoplectic are, like Scott, no longer with us.

Early on he dismisses J.V. Downes, architect and professor of architecture at UCD, as one who "didn't come until a bit later", presumably implying that Downes was his junior. J.V. Downes was born in 1891, 14 years before Scott, and was one of the first graduates of the UCD school in 1920. Downes travelled widely in Europe and America, taking superb photographs of almost every modern building by all of the modern "masters".

Many of the works, such as le Corbusier's Maison Suisse, were photographed shortly after they were completed. After his first trip to Holland in 1920, Downes showed slides of modern Dutch architecture to the AAI and regularly gave shows of all his expeditions to the Association right through the 1920s and 1930s. It was this very modest man who must be recognised as the one who introduced the Irish profession to modern architecture.

Scott's first experience was with Jones and Kelly, a firm he said had never heard of any modern architect. Could this be the same firm that had a fabulous collection of books published in the 1920s on modern architecture, including the sumptuously illustrated Die Baukunst Der Neusten Zeit by Gustav Platz, which has photographs of every modern pioneer from le Corbusier to Wright?

Not surprisingly, Scott does not even mention the Collinstown Airport building, let alone the name of the architect, Desmond Fitzgerald. This pioneer work was the most important modern building of the period, and there was no love lost between Fitzgerald and Scott.

There is little praise here for any building not his own - Alan Hope's Aspro Factory is rubbished and, unpardonably, there is a nasty and contemptuous reference to the Dublin Corporation flats of the 1930s and the suicide of the architect.

These were the work of the enormously hard-working and talented Herbert Simms, an Englishman, whose suicide note left a clue to the weight of professional responsibility which killed him.

Ironically, Scott tells of his enthusiasm for the modern brick architecture of Holland on his first trip there - the very architecture which inspired Simms and the influence of which can be seen in the buildings in Townsend Street.

The great talent of Michael Scott was in recruiting and keeping young architects of the highest calibre, and in the postwar years the practice at 19 Merrion Square became the leading one for architectural design in the country.

The office was an exciting place to work in, and Scott, like Wright, had the enormous gift of persuading clients to accept adventurous designs. The early decades after the war were dominated by the brilliance of Robin Walker, who must now deserve a separate study of his life and work.

This book is beautifully designed and a highly entertaining read; and, as Dorothy Walker hopes, it may provoke a full-scale biography of this prince of storytellers and lover of life - if taken with large pinches of salt.