CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH: Glasgow Style

Scottish architect, designer, and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was one of the earliest pioneers of modern architecture and design. His bold new blend of simplicity and poetic detail inspired modernists across Europe. Mackintosh's avant-garde approach embraced a variety of media as well as fresh stylistic devices. His multi-faceted oeuvre incorporated architecture, furniture, graphic design, landscapes, and flower studies. He embraced strong lines, elegant proportions, and natural motifs, combining an adventurous dose of japonisme with a modernist sensibility for function. He preferred bold black typography, restrained shapes, and tall, generous windows suffusing rooms with light. Much of his work was collaborative practice with his wife, fellow artist Margaret Macdonald. The couple made up half of the loose Glasgow collective known as "The Four"; the other two were Margaret's sister, Frances, and her husband, Herbert MacNair. On the continent, the "Glasgow Style" was met with delight. In Italy, Germany, and, in particular, Austria, artists of the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau drew much from its rectilinear yet lyrical forms. In this new book, we take in Mackintosh's practice across art, architecture, and design to explore his particular combination of the statuesque and sensual and its vital influence on modernist expression across Europe. Featured projects include his complete scheme for the Willow Tea Rooms and the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, widely considered Mackintosh's masterwork, stencilled wall decorations for Buchanan St tea rooms, interiors for Argyle Street tea rooms, competitions and installations for exhibitions such as the Modern Decorative Art in Turin, Hill House, Scotland Street School, interiors for number 6 Florentine Terrace and for 78 Derngate, plus textile designs, a life and work chronology and many architectural drawings and posters. 21 x 26cm, 96 pages. Packed with colour photos of his elegant tall ladder-backed chairs, white heart and red rose inlays, stained glass and even archive family photos. New from Taschen.
Click YouTube icon to see this book come to life on video.