Main entrance to the orginal Glasgow School of Art, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh between 1896 and 1909, and known as the Mackintosh Building (“the Mac”) derived from my photograph taken before the devastating fires in 2014 and 2018. It is located in Garnethill, a mostly-residential area in the centre of Glasgow.
It is said to be Mackintosh’s ‘masterwork’, designed by him when he was employed as a junior draughtsman in the architectural practice of Honeyman and Keppie.
Although Keppie is the architect of record, and received much of the credit for the project at the time, the design of the Glasgow School of Art is unmistakably that of Mackintosh, who was 29 years old when construction began.
A mixture of influences that were to define the architect’s later career can be detected in the building’s form and detailing, ranging from Scottish baronial and medieval architecture, to Japonisme and the work of contemporary architects like Norman Shaw and CFA Voysey.
Alyn Griffeths, Dezeen.com
Charles Rennie Mackintosh himself had attended evening classes in an earlier building of the Art School. The design of this important project was entrusted to him even though he was in a junior position at the time. Two notable features of the buiding were its austere exterior (the area around the main entrance, as in the image, is an exception) and the incredible amount of light flooding into the artists’ studios – no mean feat in Glasgow’s northern latitude.
“Mackintosh’s School of Art, in answer to the Governor’s request for a plain building, is an austere statement, a bold breakaway from the traditional methods of architectural adornment. Built of masonry and brickwork, it occupies a difficult, narrow sloping site. Mackintosh used wrought iron to form structural decorative features, and meticulously detailed every interior and exterior aspect of the building. The asymmetric facades of the four main elevations are each distinctive, while the lofty spaces and excellent lighting of the interior are carefully and most successfully designed.
In 1897 Mackintosh revised his design for the second phase of the building, which includes the famous library. His practice of making design alterations while construction proceeded was consistent with his view that drawings indicated an intentional design framework, and were not final or immutable.”
Jackie Cooper, Mackintosh Architecture: The Complete Buildings and Selected Projects, quoted in greatbuildings.com
This image is copyright © Liz Leyden. All rights strictly as agreed in writing with the author or her agent.
It is available for sale as various types of wall art, and as home and personal accessories, from my gallery at Pixels.com.
My original photograph, on which this image is based, is available to license as a stock photo from iStock.
