The Mac

The Glasgow School of Art whose department of architecture is one of the most prestigious in the UK is located in a building called The Mac, named after its designer Cherles Rennie Mackintosh. The building is well know throughout the UK, and a symbol for the school.

In 1896 Francis Newbery invited twelve local architects to enter a competition to design a new building for Glasgow School of Art. One of these firms was Honeyman & Keppie, which was almost certainly selected because of Mackintosh’s friendship with Newbery. Honeyman & Keppie won the competition with Mackintosh as designer. This, his first and most important commission, was to seal his future reputation.

The brief for the building of Glasgow School of Art on a steeply sloping site with an extremely tight budget was simple, utilitarian even. Due to the financial restrictions the design was completed in two phases. The north end opened in 1899, but the construction of the west end did not start until 1907 and was only completed in 1909. This time lapse coincided with the most productive period of Mackintosh’s career and accounted for the changes in style between the first and second phases. The later west end is not only much more radical and progressive than the north end, but Mackintosh also added an attic storey to create more studio space.

The School forms a simple E-shaped building with an austere and asymmetrical north façade with massive studio windows. A single central entrance leads to a staircase with two floors of studios to the right and left. The bright and airy Director’s Office with fitted cupboards and a fireplace is directly above the entrance. At the centre of the school, at the top of the stairwell top-lit with a glazed roof and timber trusses like a medieval barn, is an exhibition space called the Museum. There was little additional decoration to the building because of the limited budget. Unusually for the period there was only a small stone carving over the entrance and any decoration that Mackintosh managed to incorporate was functional as well as beautiful. The massive fenestration of the north façade is visually broken up by decorative wrought-iron brackets that brace the huge windows and can be used as window cleaning supports. The lively wrought-iron railings also give decoration to an otherwise reduced building with finials of stylised birds, bees and beetles that resemble Japanese Mon or family crests.

In the second phase of construction, the west elevation was radically altered with the addition of the library’s dramatic three-storey windows. The interior of the library is no less surprising, with the central fall of light from the windows contrasting with the dark stained wooden gallery supported by split beams. Mackintosh designed the fittings and furnishings in dark stained wood decorated with splashes of red, green and white – a magical mix of academic sobriety and modern geometric intensity. This library was probably one of Mackintosh’s most exciting interiors in a building that both kick started his architectural career and later revealed his mature style.

Reference: http://designmuseum.org/designinbritain/charles-rennie-mackintosh