1868-1928

Glasgow is the City of Architecture for 1999, so who better to honor this week than Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Glasgow-born architect and designer whose bold designs helped to usher in modern architecture? The influential designer came from humble beginnings. His parents were poor, and despite his artistic successes, Mackintosh never achieved financial comfort. When he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 59, he could not pay for treatment. However, because he was a distinguished architect, he was treated.

Mackintosh's version of a sitting room

The Mackintosh family was acquainted with Robbie Burns, who sometimes read at the family dinner table. Although his parents did not encourage his art, at the age of sixteen, he began to apprentice at the Glasgow School of Art.

In 1896, Mackintosh won a competition to design the Glasgow School of Art. Characteristic Mackintosh tall-backed chairs, Celtic motifs, and angular lines are evident both inside and outside the buildings. In the same decade, tearooms were the fad in Mackintosh’s hometown, and he designed many of these lounges.

Mackintosh married Margaret MacDonald, whom he met at Art School, and who worked with him on many projects. Together, they designed the Scottish Room for the Vienna Secession exhibition, making a strong impact on the design community in Vienna. He said his wife was the genius of the partnership, while he supplied “only talent.”

Later in his career, Mackintosh felt his design work was unrecognized, and turned more of his attention to his art. Depressed and drinking heavily, he moved several times in the last ten years of his life, to Suffolk, London, and France.

Mackintosh died of cancer at the age of sixty. Margaret died just four years later.