Review: Mackintosh Architecture and Mackintosh Architecture

Abstract

Mackintosh Architecture Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow 18 July 2014–4 January 2015 Architecture Gallery, Royal Institute of British Architects, London 18 February–23 May 2015 When fire ripped through the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in May 2014, gutting the library and destroying original furniture and fittings, the visceral response revealed just how strong a place Charles Rennie Mackintosh holds in the affections of Glasgow, Scotland, and the wider world. His name is now almost synonymous with Glasgow, and his designs market the city, inspired by and promoting romantic notions of the lone genius. An exhibition that opened less than three months later at the Hunterian Art Gallery aimed for a more nuanced account of Mackintosh’s work as an architect than the now well-defined “Mackintosh myth” allows, revealing some of the results of an important four-year research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and triumphantly concluded in 2014 with the launch of a website (http://www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk). This extraordinarily rich, multilayered resource was the major product of the research, and the exhibition was designed to highlight its findings and draw attention to its value for future inquiry. Toward the end of the show a wall text modestly noted there were no major new discoveries, but the importance of the project was that, while acknowledging the individuality of Mackintosh’s vision, it provided a corrective to the popular image by laying out evidence of his work as part of a partnership and demonstrating the collaborative nature of most architectural practice. There had not been a dedicated …