Celebration of retail giants is a bit bargain basement

The golden age of the Scottish (and British) department store has probably passed into history but in its heyday such shops represented the core of the high street, not only as places for buying any and all manner of goods, but also as an architectural and social focus.

The combination of social history, landmark architecture and the media used to record them, such as written archives, photography and drawings, represents a promising opportunity for a fascinating and rich exhibition.

Disappointingly, this small assortment of ten drawings and photographs, accompanied by sparse text panels, misses the mark on a number of levels and leaves much room for improvement. It’s neither fish nor fowl — is it a photographic, architectural or interior design show? Because it falls between two (or even three or four) stools it ends up lacking on all counts and presents a lacklustre impression of what is, in fact, a complex and rich area.

That said, there are interesting aspects and these whet the appetite for a more comprehensive treatment. A photograph taken in the 1930s by Francis M Chrystal of Parker’s Stores in Edinburgh, built in the mock-Tudor style favoured by the Victorians, says little about the shop itself, but serves to illustrate the mass architectural vandalism wrought on the area, driven by the expansion of the university.

A more recent casualty of town planning was Goldbergs, demolished in 1996. The building was completed in 1960 and occupied a prominent position in Edinburgh’s Tollcross. It was one of a large chain of shops scattered across Scotland, launched by Abraham Goldberg in Glasgow in 1908. However, this rather disappointing photograph, taken in 1969 by Ian Porteous, fails to show it to its best advantage, and emphasises the rather tawdry car park in front.

An interior view of Jenners in Edinburgh and an exterior shot of GL Wilson’s (known locally as “The Corner”) in Dundee, shown in high-quality Victorian photographs, display a level of design and fitting that our modern era rarely matches.

This modest display, timed to complement a much more comprehensive show of Liberty fabric and fashion that opened this summer in the same venue, might best be described as an appetising hors d’oeuvre for guests rather cruelly deprived of their main course.

Until January 12