Mackintosh, Architect’s appartment, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 1900. (view in google maps)

Mackintosh designed his own house in Glasgow, 120 Mains Street (now 120 Blythswood Street). The flat provided Mackintosh with the opportunity to develop his design ideas further. He brought together furniture items from different exhibitions.  Inside, however, it is possible to trace that particular art nouveau tension by attracting natural colors of decorative elements by modulating light sources.

Mackintosh worked on the symbolism of his elements to discuss the bourgeois life model in relation to the purest artistic inspiration. Especially in a Glasgow environment, where the effects of social disadvantages are amplified by quick economic growth which gives legitimacy to its art development.

Aspects of his holistic aesthetic, such as the articulation of space using a horizontal picture rail and vertical wall-strapping, the careful groupings of unconventionally spare furniture, the contrasting light and dark palettes and the importance given to the fireplace, inspired many later domestic and tearoom projects.

References:

• Robertson Pamela, The Mackintosh house, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, Newsletter (April 1992), p. 15
• Reekie P, The Mackintosh house, 1981
• http://www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/browse/display/?sysnum=s433

Authors:

Alexis Barnabe, Michel Nocture, Gin Joen Yau