Glasgow 1868 – 1928 London
Architect, interior designer, arts and crafts designer, designer, graphic artist and painter
Mackintosh founded the collaborative group “The Four” together with his wife Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, her sister Frances Macdonald McNair and her sister’s husband James Herbert McNair. This group strongly influenced other movements, especially the “Glasgow School”. Mackintosh was one of the leading protagonists of the art-nouveau movement of the late 19th century and gave important impulses to modern design. He is regarded as an influential precursor of modern art.
Life and works
Mackintosh studied at the School of Art of his hometown. His most prominent piece of work is the Glasgow School of Art building at 167, Renfrew Street, which he began in 1896. The design of the rectangular building is very strict and clear with seemingly no ornamentation at all. Between 1907 and 1909, a library designed and furnished by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was added to the building. Right angles and straight lines dominate here, too.
With his art-nouveau designs for Catherine Cranston’s tea rooms, Mackintosh became known as an interior designer. The Willow Tearooms in Glasgow remain today as they were designed by Mackintosh. The famous Hill House was built between 1902 and 1904 at Helensburgh north of Glasgow. In 1900, Mackintosh and his wife participated in the 8th Vienna Secession Exhibition, which made them known internationally.
Together with Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott, Mackintosh designed furniture for serial production and articles of daily use for the furniture producer Karl Schmidt-Hellerau. The artists had their share in the sales and their names were mentioned in the catalogues of the “Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau”, which was something completely new at that time. In 1903/04, their works were shown at an exhibition of wedding and household articles in Dresden. In the late 1970s, the principal interiors of the architect’s Glasgow home were reconstructed at the Mackintosh House museum.
Buildings
1903: Hill House, (Helensburgh, Scotland)
1904: The Willow Tearooms (Glasgow, Scotland)
1904: Scotland Street School Museum of Education (Glasgow, Scotland)
1896−1909: Glasgow School of Art (Scotland)
Ref.: "Charles Rennie Mackintosh" in: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Jan. 2009; URL: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rennie_mackintosh; Ch.; P. Fiell; Köln 2004; Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1868-1928