Hampden Park

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is Glasgow’s most well-renowned architect but was also a furniture/textile designer, interior decorator, artist and famous for his “mackintosh Rose” motif. Born in Glasgow over 150 years ago on the 7th June 1868, Mackintosh was the second winner ever of the Alexander Thomson Travelling Scholarship, established to encourage students to study the fundamentals of classical architecture.

A man now widely celebrated in Glasgow, he was never as successful or as recognised in his day as he should have been. He has since gone on to become a hugely influential icon of design all over the world. Although considered not to be purely an architect (and also the fact in later life he left it altogether to focus on being a water colour painter) Mackintosh still had an impressive list of buildings credited to him.

It was during the ten years either side of 1900 that most of the classic buildings associated with Mackintosh emerged. The Glasgow Herald Building was completed in 1895; Ruchill Free Church Halls were completed in 1899; Queens Cross Church opened in 1899; The famous Willow Tearooms opened in 1903; Hill House in Helensburgh was also completed in 1903; The Daily Record Building was completed in 1905; The Glasgow School of Art was completed in stages between 1897 and 1909; The Scotland Street School was completed in 1909; and The House for an Art Lover was designed in 1901.

After the success of his architecture, Mackintosh moved to southern France in 1923 with his wife. There he turned to watercolour painting, with the intention of mounting an exhibition in London. He returned to London in 1928 with 40 paintings but on the 10th December of that year he passed away at age 60.