Glasgow: House for an Art Lover

The house for an Art Lover

There is a wonderful story behind the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park. In 1902 Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald entered a design competition run by a German design magazine to design a house suitable for someone who was an art lover. 43 entries were received but no first prize was awarded. The Mackintoshes were disqualified on the grounds that they had not submitted the full required set of drawings, but they did win a special prize for "pronounced personal quality, novel and austere form and the uniform configuration of interior and exterior".

Then 80 years later a Consulting Engineer named Graham Roxburgh who was responsible for restoring Mackintosh interiors in nearby Craigie Hall, had the idea to finally build the House for an Art Lover. Work began in 1989 and the House opened to the public in 1996, after delays caused by the recession. Purists stress that it is an interpretation of Mackintosh's design as it includes a café which was of course not part of the original design and the top storey does not contain the rooms specified in the original design.To my mind, it is probably best seen after other Mackintosh work in Glasgow, when it becomes clear that it epitomises most of what is best of Mackintosh's art.

You enter through the gift shop in the bottom right corner of the facade and then go upstairs to an exhibition which sets the scene by describing the story of how the House was built. A free audio guide gives a detailed account of each room. A recurrent feature is the research that the numerous craftsmen and women had to do to turn the designs and images into a completed building.

The first room is the Oval Room with classic tall Mackintosh chairs and an absolutely exquisite glass lampshade. Fitted seats either side of the window create a space for people to chat.

Next door is the astonishing Music Room. You enter from a dark hallway into a a room filled with light from the tall windows and pale decorative. This a normal feature of Mackintosh's houses and is remarkably effective. The windows are separated by tall, tapering posts and the excellent free audio guide explains that these are symbolic trees - they have stylised green leaves at the top. Outside is a large terrace. 

The fireplace is a tremendous ensemble. I thought that the piano setting at the other end was less pleasing.

From the Music Room you emerge into the dark hall again to explore its decorative charms, notably the beautiful stained glass panels set into the party wall and the silver panels on the two main columns which hold up a gallery.

The Hall leads into the Dining Room, always dark in Mackintosh's houses. We read somewhere that this was to show off the brilliant white shirts of the male diners and and the brightly coloured tops of their female companions. This may have been the effect, but it is hard to believe that Mackintosh would have had such a trivial objective.

We admired the delicate hanging lights. The gesso panels just below the ceiling are delightful ...

... as is the rose wall surrounding the fireplace.

Off the hall, in a lobby leading to a private area, I spotted another superb piece of stained glass in door.

And climbing the stairs to the gallery brought this staggering light fitting into view, with delicate painted glass in the window behind it.

Around the back of the House is the Elephant for Glasgow sculpture by Kenny Hunter. It was cast in part from recycled, redundant or scrap parts of locomotives, sourced in India and South Africa, that were originally built in Glasgow. It is seen as a symbol of Glasgow's historic role as a "workshop of the world". I rather liked it.

Completing the anti-clockwise tour of the outside you reach what I now see is the main entrance, featuring the portico which once belonged to Ibrox Hill House, a mansion demolished in 1914 which stood on the site now occupied by House for an Art Lover.

Conditions: very wet and cloudy for the most part.

Distance: it is a mile so from Ibrox metro station, past the famous football stadium.

Rating: five stars. An absolute gem.

Glasgow: Mackintosh church, Art Scool and Willow Tea Rooms

The Mackintosh church

We are in Glasgow for a mini break with the principal aim of seeing as much of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work as possible. We decided to start at the Mackintosh church at Queen's Cross, taking the metro to Cowcaddens and walking about a mile up Maryhill Road. The church was built for the Free Church of Scotland and the design brief required a simple design. It was completed in 1899 and became redundant in 1976. Soon after it became the headquarters of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.

The exterior is quite squat and lumpy and has the unusual feature of a corner tower which becomes narrower as it goes up. It was apparently based on a Medieval church in Somerset  and on Norman Shaw's Holy Trinity, Latimer Road. The irregularly placed windows are typical of Mackintosh.

Although looking rather austere from the outside, there are still some delightful flower motifs of the kind that Mackintosh incorporated in all his designs. This is a close up of the area above the main entrance (on the right of the exterior).

The interior seems fairly plain at first and is dominated by the wonderful "blue heart" window at the east end and by the barrel vault with its steel cross-beams.

Here is a close up of the window showing the unusual tracery and the variegated shades of blue as well as the stylised flowers beloved of Makintosh.

At the west end there is another stained glass window with more minimal stained glass.

There are also two galleries and scattered throughout the church, on the pulpit, on the capitals of the columns holding up the galleries, on doors and woodwork there are delightful floral details. They are quite unobtrusive and one wonders if Macintosh almost smuggled them in when the church.

We headed back down the hill and headed towards Renfrew St. Here is Mackintosh's most famous building, the Glasgow School of Art. It was built in two phases between 1896-99 and 1907-09. A serious fire in 2014 caused serious damage including the destruction of Mackintosh's famous library.

Approaching the building uphill from the east, it can be seen that about half it is swathed in scaffolding. The large windows light a series of studios and looking at the east end it is striking how one half is completely blank, while the other has a variety of windows, mouldings and a turreted staircase. This was a clear example of exterior design rigorously following internal function, and was quite controversial at the time.

This is a view of the front of the building with its famous entrance.

I have seen many pictures of the School of Art entrance, but what I hadn't previously spotted was the amount of ornamental ironwork, including fence posts and even a street lamp. The fence posts seem to be sprouting a clump of tulips.

From the School of Art it is only a short hop to Sauchiehall Street and the Willow Tea Rooms. This was converted from a warehouse in 1903 to designs by Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald. The client, Catherine (Kate) Cranston had four such enterprises in the city which provided places for people, especially women, to meet without the temptation of the demon drink. Mackintosh was involved in the design of all of these, but only the Willow Tea Room remains. Over time it was incorporated into a department store and became its tea room. It was refurbished in the 1980s.

The ground floor is now the gift shop, but the first floor houses one of two tea rooms. It is pale coloured with ladder-back chairs and geometrical and flower motifs.

The real glory of the Willow Tea Rooms however is the Room Deluxe on the second floor. This smallish square room is surrounded on three sides by an extraordinary frieze of purple glass in a elaborate leadwork design.

The chairs are more elaborate than downstairs and the window has exquisite stylised tulips, which are gold on the inside and silver outside (see the exterior photo above).

On the top floor is the former Billiard Room. This houses a small exhibition and has an original fireplace. But the best bit is the high window with this series of brilliant blue glass panels.

Conditions: rainy and cloudy.

Distance: no more than 3 miles.

Rating: five stars.