New Forum for Mackintosh's Architecture

Scholars are completing an online database of buildings by the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, just as restorers are puzzling over how to rebuild his 1909 wing at the Glasgow School of Art, now in charred ruins. The Glasgow School of Art is widely considered to be Mackintosh's Masterwork. For over 100 years the Mackintosh building has functioned as a working art school, housing the fine art students and staff, sitting at the heart of GSA's campus on Garnethill. In May 2014 a fire damaged the west wing of the Mackintosh building and as such there is no visitor access to the interior of the Mackintosh building whilst restoration gets underway.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawing for his extension to The Glasgow Herald building (1894). The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014.

On May 23 a fire devastated the Glasgow School of Art that had just been thoroughly restored. On July 18 the new website, "Mackintosh Architecture: Context, Making and Meaning", will have its debut and exhibitions of Mackintosh’s drawings, paintings and building models will open at the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. Also we could find more information in this website: www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk.

Pamela Robertson, the principal investigator for the website, said that the fire felt like a “body blow.” The database’s descriptions of the Glasgow School of Art are being updated to indicate the damage. This website will help restorers work on the school: “It must be one of the best documented interiors of the early 20th century,” she said. (Fans of the building are posting vintage and recent images at another new site, the Mac Photo Archive.)

This is the first substantial exhibition devoted to Mackintosh’s architecture, with over 80 architectural drawings, many never exhibited before, rarely seen archival material, and specially commissioned films and models. The Scottish architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), is celebrated all over the world as an exponent of art nouveau, a modernist, a symbolist also as a brilliant architect and artist. Understanding of his architectural career has tended to focus on a determinate group of Known buildings and unbuilt designs, marked out by the individuality of their formal design and detailing.

By contrast, the ‘Mackintosh Architecture’ project aims to establish a more rounded picture, placing Mackintosh within the context of the office of John Honeyman & Keppie / Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh and its extended network of clients, contractors and suppliers. High and low-status buildings are acknowledged – both were part of the professional architect’s output. And due weight is given to the functional and constructional aspects, financial and other practical constraints, which shaped a design as well as its aesthetic qualities. Particular emphasis is placed in the exhibition on Mackintosh’s domestic designs, which comprise some of his most significant achievements.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Monument Trust.

Sponsored by Turcan Connell.
Organised in association with the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Venue.- The Hunterian, Art Gallery. University of Glasgow. 82 Hillhead Street, Glasgow G12 8QQ. UK.
Dates.- From 18 July 2014 to 4 January 2015.

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Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawing for his Scotland Street School in Glasgow (1904). Credit The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawing for House for an Art Lover, competition entry.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawing for east-west elevation of the Mackintosh Building, 1897.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s drawing for Music room in House for an Art Lover.

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Charles Rennie MACKINTOSH

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an architect, designer and Scottish watercolorist, which had fundamental importance in the Arts and Crafts movement and was also the leading exponent of Art Nouveau in Scotland. He was the father of Elizabeth Nicol Rennie also followed in his footsteps.

Protomodernist (forerunner of modernism). Tries to reform breaking with the above. He rose to fame after exposing your furniture in the Secession in Vienna in 1900 and was part of the group "The Four" of Glasgow, created in 1897, its main figure.

He took elements of Arts and Crafts, and was very well accepted by the Belgian Art Nouveau opposition (he was a hero to the Secession).

It was one of the most prominent architects of characters linked to Art Nouveau (including Victor Horta), but after 1913 did not receive more orders.

In 1884 he was apprenticed in the studio of architect John Hutchinson, where you would be forming for five years. At the same time, he attended night classes in drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art, acquiring great skill in drawing and design as well as a watercolorist. This was a period of hard work but at the same time, rewarded with several awards. It would be in the evening classes where he met the people who later formed The Four group (Four), the sisters Frances Macdonald and Margaret Macdonald, who would later marry, and Herbert MacNair, colleague working at studio Honeyman & Keppie, where come to work in 1889 and remained until 1913. in 1890, the granting of travel grant Alexander-Thomson, which won the design of a public building of classic Greek style allowed him to go in 1891 France, Italy and Belgium for three months. In 1896, his project won the competition for the Glasgow School of Art (1896-1909), his masterpiece.

In collaboration with his wife, he furnished from 1896 several tearooms in Glasgow; also he received orders from England and abroad for villas and homes; including one for a music room for Fritz Waerndorfer.

The Four group also participated in the VIII exhibition of the Viennese Secession 1900.

In 1915 the marriage Mackintosh moved to London, where he remained until the end of his life, except for the years 1923 to 1927, during which he lived in Port-Vendres (France), where he devoted himself to painting (watercolors).

Mackintosh in London devoted to graphic works and book arts.