Those who want to see art should bypass London and go straight to Glasgow. Glasgow’s take on art is unique. In architecture, it is a new, young city.
—Hermann Muthesius Dekorative Kunst, 1902
During the years that Mackintosh was forging new friendships and developing his innovative graphic style as one of The Four, he was also working hard as an assistant in the architectural offices of Honeyman & Keppie. Because of his junior position, his inventive ideas and designs for those early buildings went uncredited, much to Mackintosh’s frustration.
In late 1896 Mackintosh entered a significant new creative partnership when he began contributing to the interior design of the artistic tearooms of businesswoman Catherine Cranston. Her city-center establishments provided a variety of dining and social spaces attractive to middle-class men and women and were a commercial response to the alcohol-free tenets of the Temperance Movement. Between 1896 and 1898, Mackintosh worked alongside established interior designer George Walton, and their differing aesthetics created an interesting synergy at Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street and Argyle Street Tearooms. From 1900 until 1917, Mackintosh was the sole designer for the tearoom entrepreneur’s expanding business empire. Her patronage would give Mackintosh an important outlet to develop his design language and imagination throughout the rest of his career.
The breadth of Mackintosh’s early architectural and design achievements was extraordinary. By the age of thirty-one, he had designed an art club gallery, an art school, a church, a church hall, a women’s college at the University of Glasgow, a major newspaper building, private homes, a public school, tearoom interiors, furniture, and more.
The Glasgow Herald Building: elevation and section, September 1893
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Office drawing by Honeyman & Keppie Architects
Ink and wash on linen
Glasgow City Archives: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, TD.1309.B.136
The Glasgow Herald Building was Mackintosh’s first major architectural project at Honeyman & Keppie and the earlier of the two city-center newspaper premises he designed. Constructed in stages between 1894 and 1899, the red sandstone structure housed printing presses, dispatch rooms, offices, and other facilities. The building’s most distinctive feature is a 145-foot-tall, 8,000-gallon water tower originally designed to supply a fire-suppression sprinkler system. Mackintosh also designed furniture and fixtures for the editor’s office and a meeting room.
Queen’s Cross Church, Glasgow: perspective drawing, 1897–98
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Pencil and ink on paper
From the collections of The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, GLAHA 52586
Commissioned by the Presbyterian Free Church for the Maryhill district in north Glasgow, Queen’s Cross is the only church Mackintosh fully conceived and saw built. For its furnished interior he designed the chairs, collection stands, communion table, pews, and pulpit and the dramatic purple and blue leaded-glass heart window above the chancel. On the exterior’s red sandstone and the interior’s dark stained wood, decorative carvings depict stylized seeds, sprouting plant forms, and winged birds. Mackintosh probably intended this iconography to recall the biblical parable of the sower.
The church opened to the community in September 1899. Today it serves as the headquarters of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, which promotes awareness of the artist’s work.
Martyrs’ Public School, Glasgow: perspective drawing, 1896
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), 1895
Ink on paper
From the collections of The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, GLAHA 52585
Martyrs’ Public School—the first of two Glasgow schools Mackintosh designed—served children in the Townhead area of Glasgow ages five to twelve. As was standard at the time, the building had separate entrances for boys, girls, and infants (the term used for the youngest students). Mackintosh romanticized the building in this perspective drawing by including an imaginary seventeenth-century tower house (to the right), a sundial, and decorative leaded glass in some of the windows. To complete the scene, he drew irregular, densely clustered horizontal lines to create a dramatic sky.
The Glasgow School of Art: north elevation, March 1897
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Office drawing by Honeyman & Keppie Architects
Photomechanical reproduction; ink and ink wash on paper
Glasgow City Archives: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, TD.1309.A.123.5
Britain’s major industrial cities each had an art school that linked art instruction to improved local industrial output. In 1897 The Glasgow School of Art invested in an inspirational, modern building to match its progressive ambition and international standing. Considered Mackintosh’s masterwork, the school was built in two stages. The eastern half of the building (left) and the central entrance were completed by the end of 1899 and the full building completed by the end of 1909. Out of The Glasgow School of Art’s Technical Studios, the Glasgow Style emerged.
Mackintosh’s Early Architectural Accomplishments: 1892–99
© Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums), 2019
Access and filming granted by kind permission of all building owners
Take a tour around some of Mackintosh’s earliest interiors and buildings in Glasgow:
The Glasgow Art Club Gallery, 1892–93
The Glasgow Herald Building, 1893–98
Queen’s Cross Church, 1896–99
Running time: 10 minutes, 13 seconds
The Glasgow School of Art: cross-sectional drawing, September 1897
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Office drawing by Honeyman & Keppie Architect
Photomechanical reproduction and ink wash on paper
Glasgow City Archives: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, TD.1309.A.123.4
In 1897 Mackintosh’s imaginative light-filled design won Honeyman & Keppie the contract for the new Glasgow School of Art building. This cross-section shows his original ideas for interior details. Wall panels are stained green, and each doorway has a leaded glass panel of different design. The School’s museum, which featured a figurative frieze, was both a gathering and an exhibition space. This proposal hints at the scope of Mackintosh’s early ambition.
High-backed chair for Miss Cranston’s Argyle Street Tearooms, 1898
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Stained oak and rush
From the collections of The Glasgow School of Art, MC/F/14C
Wall-covering fabric, ca. 1896–97
Designed by George Walton (1867–1933)
Facsimile print of a silk wall covering first used in Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street Tearooms
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Now considered iconic, this chair from Miss Cranston’s Argyle Street Tearooms is the first high-backed seat Mackintosh designed. The tall, straight back invites good posture, while the oval—cut with the arc of the open wings of a stylized flying bird—frames the sitter’s head. Created over 120 years ago, this chair is still very much ahead of its time. Since the 1980s, reproductions of this design have furnished the sets of television programs like Star Trek and films such as Blade Runner.
In the Argyle Street Tearooms, George Walton did much of the interior design. Mackintosh’s dark-stained dramatic furniture sat in stark contrast with Walton’s harmonious repeat-patterned wall decor and richly embellished, colorful surfaces. No wall-covering examples from Argyle Street remain, so to show this aesthetic contrast, behind the chair is one of the elegant, floral-patterned silk fabrics used on walls in the Buchanan Street Tearooms, in facsimile.
Stenciled plaster fragment for Miss Cranston’s Argyle Street Tearooms, 1898
Designed and made by George Walton & Co., Glasgow
Painted plaster
Glasgow Museums: Given by Legal & General Property Limited, 1990, E.1990.41.2.a & b
Table for the Smoking Room, Miss Cranston’s Argyle Street Tearooms, 1898
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Polished oak
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, E.1982.58
This plaster ceiling fragment and table from the Argyle Street Tearooms demonstrate how George Walton’s elegant interior decoration counterbalanced Mackintosh’s bold, sculptural furniture. On Walton’s stenciled ceiling fragment, soft and colorful floral forms appear within a framework of branches offset by a checkered border. Long stretches of this applied design ran along the underside of the room’s wide support beams.
Worn from years of heavy use, Mackintosh’s robust table has a powerful solidity; however, the deep curves of the apron (the part directly below the circular top) and four tapering legs visually lighten and elevate its mass. Subtly carved and pierced decoration alludes to plant forms or germinating seeds.
Leaded glass door for a toilet cubicle, Miss Cranston’s Argyle Street Tearooms, 1898
Designed and made by George Walton & Co., Glasgow
Stained and painted wood, leaded glass, molded glass, and repoussé copper
Glasgow Museums: Acquired 1984, E.1984.64
George Walton specialized in richly patterned and textured surfaces in both two- and three-dimensional works. By placing beaten metal into the leaded glass panels of this door, he gave life and depth, as well as an evening sparkle, to a translucent medium reliant on daylight. The textures of the copper and the lines of the lead would have been picked up by electric light to reveal the design of this cubicle door after dark. The combination of beaten copper and colored glass became one of Walton’s decorative trademarks.
The Ingram Street Tearooms, 1900
From 1900 Mackintosh was the sole interior designer for the entrepreneur Catherine Cranston. His first solo project was her Ingram Street Tearooms, which included the Ladies’ Luncheon Room. For Glaswegians of the period, the bright, white-painted room’s pared-down simplicity would have been a pleasant contrast to the smoke and bustle of the city street. They would have found themselves in a unified and harmonious interior, with electric pendant lights, dark-stained furniture, aluminum-leaf-covered wall panels, colorful stenciling, leaded glass, and long textured and colorful gesso friezes along the opposing upper walls.
Mirror for the ladies’ toilets, Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, 1900–1901
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Stained wood and mirrored glass
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, E.1982.61
Serving table for Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, ca. 1900–1901
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Stained wood and paint
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, E.1982.59.2
To furnish his first interiors at Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, Mackintosh returned to his use of pierced furniture, which he had earlier employed to dramatic effect at her Argyle Street premises. The cut-out shapes—a simple, economical, and practical form of decoration—lightened the bulk of the furniture. This heavy wooden serving table, its flat top the size of a serving tray, was designed to stand at the end of a larger dining table. The mirror’s line of a repeating cut-out and sculpted relief depicting sprouting seeds add elegance, while the rounded tapering posts and cornice accentuate its three-dimensionality.
High-backed chair for Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, 1900
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Stained oak, with modern horsehair upholstery
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, E.1982.44.1
Mackintosh is famous for his radical high-backed chairs. Through stretching and elongating the back of the chair, he dramatically exaggerated its height to frame and partially enclose the sitter. In these experimentations, he rejected fussily carved detail to create a new, bold, minimalistic design. These streamlined, simplified forms were central to both Mackintosh’s aesthetic and that of the Glasgow Style. It is unknown if this chair design was for the dining areas of Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, but a surviving photograph shows one of these chairs in use in the basement Billiards Room that Mackintosh designed as part of the establishment in 1900–1901.
Pendant light from the Ladies’ Luncheon Room, Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, ca. 1900–1901
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Maker unknown
Copper, aluminum, and leaded glass
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, E.1986.110.1
Glasgow weather is often rainy and overcast, so despite allowing large amounts of daylight to enter his interiors, Mackintosh made creative opportunities out of the need to design electric lighting. Pierced lampshades like this one allowed him to create specific illumination effects; he added colored glass for mood and holes through which the light could sparkle.
Stencil card, probably for the decoration of Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street Tearooms, 1896–97
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Made by J. & W. Guthrie and Andrew Wells Ltd., Glasgow
Card and paint
Glasgow Museums: Bought 1984, E.1984.32.8
This stencil card was likely used in the decoration of an Aubrey Beardsley–inspired mural that Mackintosh designed for the Buchanan Street Tearooms in 1896–97. Beardsley was well known for hiding erect phalluses in his drawings, and this stencil’s design may be Mackintosh’s way of paying homage within the wall decoration of the Smoking Room, a space for male clientele. The cheeky reference did not go unnoticed; the architect Edwin Lutyens—a regular diner at Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street Tearooms when visiting Glasgow—described the décor as “gorgeous and a wee bit vulgar.”
Wall panel for the Billiards Room, Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms, 1900–1901
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)
Stenciling probably by J. & W. Guthrie and Andrew Wells Ltd., Glasgow
Stained wood and paint
Glasgow Museums: Acquired by Glasgow Corporation as part of the Ingram Street Tearooms, 1950, ISTR.14.E.13
Around 1900 Mackintosh often used a divided, inverted heart shape as a shorthand reference for stylized budding flower-heads or leaves. He applied a variant of it as a repeating stenciled motif to the paneled walls of the first billiards room he designed for the Ingram Street Tearooms. On this individual panel the painted pattern appears at first glance to show a row of budding tulips arranged like a rack of curved billiard cues, but the flowers can also be read as having phallic connotations.
