House for an Art Lover

Having spent a lot of time in the city, doing the tour on the bus and on foot, I decided I really had to see Charles Rennie Mackintosh's House for an Art Lover on the south side of the river Clyde. There are so many websites about the man himself that I won't go too far into talking about him, but I'll just say that he came from Glasgow - born in 1868 - studied architecture, art and design and became one of the forerunners in architectural design of the Art Nouveau era. He was really innovative in his style which in my mind obviously led on to and inspired the Art Deco period of the 1930s. His most famous creations are the Glasgow School of Art, Hill House in Helensburgh, which he designed and furnished in his inimitable style, and the Willow Tearooms in Sauchiehall Street, but there are so many other examples of his work around the country, and today pottery, jewellery, towels, bookmarks and masses of other souvenirs are made using his symbolic flowers and designs. So many of today's designs are "based on" the originals and are often referred to as Mockintosh! CRM must be well known now throughout the western world and perhaps beyond. His style mainly consists of natural forms, with light and texture taking up a big part, and the interior designs incorporate stylised trees and flowers, in particular the rose which has come to be known as the Glasgow Rose.

The Glasgow Rose in the glass panel

of the Music Room doors

In 1901 Mackintosh entered a competition in a German magazine to design a house for an art lover. He and his wife Margaret MacDonald collaborated to come up with plans and drawings of exterior elevations as well as water colour paintings of how the rooms would look. It is interesting to note that CRM was disqualified because of a late submission, but that no first prize was subsequently given. Instead, several entries were awarded equal prizes and Mackintosh also was awarded a sum of money as a recognition of his excellent plans - “their pronounced personal quality, their novel and austere form and the uniform configuration of interior and exterior.” Would he have won the competition if he had submitted his entry in time? I think from the details given that he would have!!!

The house however was never built, but in the 1980s during restoration work on Craigie House, and on a music room by CRM, Graham Roxburgh, a consulting engineer, came across a portfolio of designs during his research at the Hunterian Museum that turned out to be of the house for an art lover. The dream of creating reality from the portfolio of plans, drawings and paintings stemmed from that time. Much research was carried out to ascertain just how it could be made to happen, and how Mackintosh himself would have achieved his aims, but at last the house began to take shape - not without a few problems, not least the recession of the 90s, that meant funding was not readily available and work had to stop for a while, but today it stands proud in Bellahouston Park, open for public viewing and also as a working extension of the Glasgow School of Art.

I just adored the house on sight! The lines of the exterior are wonderful, and from the moment I stepped from the tiny front vestibule into the glorious front hall - a great hall in CRM's castle - I was hooked! The hall is big and dark with tall pillars along one long side supporting the upstairs landing as a gallery and opposite are the tall windows that let plenty of light into the room. Beneath the gallery is the hall fireplace, midway between two doors that open onto the white painted Music Room with its beautiful rounded French windows onto the balcony. The dining room opens off one end of the hall while opposite at the other end is the staircase that turns up to a windowed half landing, then doubles back on itself to lead upwards to the main landing and the passage along the gallery. Unfortunately - well that depends how you look at it - the upstairs rooms of the house are used by the Art School, so no bedrooms are displayed, but the rooms downstairs are enough to keep my attention at least, for quite some time. Audio phones guide you through the rooms explaining the story of building the house, how they sourced materials and the reasons behind certain decisions, and talk you through the design of the interior fittings which were embellished with designs by Mrs Mackintosh, Mary MacDonald.

The dining room is quite dark too, with a lot of dark wood used for the furnishings of the room. Stencils have been used on the fireplace wall, and gesso panels designed and made in the way Margaret would have done them appear right round the room above head height.

The Music Room is in complete contrast to the dark hall, Here everything is white, bright, light and soothing! At one end of the room is a fireplace while at the opposite end is a piano in an elaborate casing more suitable I think to being an adornment for a bedroom.

These two pictures of close up detail show the designs of styised trees and flowers, and the oval that CRM seems to enjoy using.

Here's another close-up, of the table and chairs this time. They also sport little leaves and floral decoration.

Then, looking through the piano decor there again are the doors to the hall.

Next door is the Oval room, the ladies withdrawing room! It is quite small with a fireplace, a built in cabinet and cupboards behind the panels of the oval walls. At either side of the window are little "hideaway" seats, for private reading or perhaps for an unseen after dinner snooze?

The fireplace is very small and basic in this room but the panel behind it is tiled with very small tiles that had to be individually mitred before they were put in place.

You have to visit this house yourself next time you're in Glasgow - bus routes 3, 9 and 54 from the city centre! Hopefully some of these photos from my visit to The House for an Art Lover will inspire you.

Talk again soon.