Mackintosh, Charles-Rennie, 1868-1928

The celebrated architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed Hill House, Helensburgh for the publisher, Walter Blackie. Apart from private commissions such as this, Mackintosh designed iconic public buildings such as Glasgow School of Art, and the House for an Art Lover. These draft plans for Hill House (apart from the pencil sketch) appear to be by Mackintosh himself, but are not signed. The office address is given as 140 Bath Street, Glasgow. Walter Blackie was a Governor of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. Hill House is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is open to the public.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in Glasgow on 7 June 1868. He was educated at Allen Glen's School, Glasgow where he showed an interest in walking and sketching. He always intended to become an architect, and in 1884 entered as an apprentice the of John Hutchinson as an apprentice. At the same time he started taking evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art . As a student he won various prizes, including several medals, and the Greek Thomson' travelling scholarship, which took him to France and Italy in 1891. In 1889, he became a draughtsman in the prosperous firm of Honeyman and Keppie .

The original, exciting, short-lived Art Nouveau' movement of the 1890s saw Mackinstosh emerge as a leading figure on the Glasgow art scene. The style was a protest against the stuffiness of Victorian design, and being revolutionary' and decadent' , it appealed immediately to clever young people.

Mackintosh met Herbert McNair and the sisters, Frances and Margaret MacDonald, at the Glasgow School of Art . Together they formed a group called the Four' , very intense and poetic, and very active in all sorts of experiments in craft work and graphic design. They exhibited together in London in 1896, and attracted the influential Studio magazine, first published in 1893.

In 1896, a competition was held to design a new building for the Glasgow School of Art on a site on Renfrew street. The firm of Honeyman and Keppie submitted a design from the hand of Mackintosh which won the competition.

At the same time as overseeing the building for the School of Art, Mackintosh was busy with Interior Design and Exhibition work. He was also receiving commissions to decorate the interiors of local businesses and in 1898 his designs received great praise at the International Exhibition in Munich.

In 1903, he completed the Willow Tea Rooms . The tea rooms design was inspired by Rossetti's sonnet O Ye, all ye that walk in Willow Wood' and which saw art and mysticism wedded to commerce for the first time.

In 1904, Mackintosh became a partner in the firm Honeyman and Keppie and designed Scotland Street School. 1907 saw the erection of the western half of the School of Art which was completed in 1909, representing Mackintosh's swan song as an architect.

He continue to design tea rooms and furniture but began to find things too much for him. Temperamental weaknesses were affecting his daily life. Always nervous and some what irritable he began to find the office routine unbearable. He had trouble with the plans for the Scotland Street School and the Governors of the School of Art obstructed his plans for the completion of the School. His work began to suffer and his health give way. In 1913, he resigned from the firm and left the city of Glasgow.

He spent sometime living in Walberswick, Suffolk but settled in Chelsea, London in 1915. Yet in wartime London he received no worthwhile commissions and lacked the contacts that he had had in Glasgow. Even so, he produced over 40 fine watercolours, landscape and flower pieces. His health grew steadily worse and in 1928 he died in London of throat cancer.

Source: Glasgow School of Art, Charles Rennie Mackintosh