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Reception and Music Room, The House for an Art Lover
Architect: Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1901)
Drawing: from 'Haus eines Kunstfreundes', (1902)
Source: RIBA British Architectural Library

This interior, a design of a reception and music room, is unmistakably Mackintosh. Alongside the Glasgow School of Art, it offers a good opportunity to analyse, and distil some of the principal elements of his design.

Like the School of Art, strong, clear lines are central to the design. Verticals dominate, notably with the top-heavy chairs. Plain areas are juxtaposed with small sections of intense detail. These delicate forms are clearly based on nature, if abstracted. The electric lights are a good example, their lamp shades appear part-confectionary, part-petal. And these electric lights offer new possibilities: interior colour schemes can now be light, calm and spacious, showing off the fine embroideries produced by Mackintosh’s wife Margaret.

Sadly, these striking designs failed to be built in his lifetime. Through colour reproductions of these delicate watercolours, Mackintosh reached an international audience, notably in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, where the next progressive design movements would emerge. At home, his work was less appreciated. However fashions shift, and eventually Mackintosh was rediscovered: finally, in 1990, the House for An Art Lover was built just outside Glasgow from these designs.