The Mackintosh House is a reconstruction of the principal interiors from the Glasgow home of the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) and the artist Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh (1864-1933).
Visit the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery to view images here
The couple lived at 78 Southpark Avenue (originally 6 Florentine Terrace) from 1906 to 1914. Substantial alterations were made in 1906 as Mackintosh remodelled the proportions and natural lighting of the Victorian end-of-terrace house.
© The Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
The principal interiors were decorated in his distinctive style, remarkable then, and now, for the disciplined austerity of the furnishings and decoration.
The house was purchased by the University of Glasgow in 1946. The generosity of the vendors, the Davidson family, led to the simultaneous gift of all of the original furniture.
In 1963, the house, threatened by subsidence and next to land scheduled for redevelopment, was demolished.
Prior to demolition, however, an extensive survey was made and all salvageable fitments removed to enable the future reconstruction of the hall, dining room, studio-drawing room and main bedroom.
©Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
While the architects, Whitfield Partners, conceived The Mackintosh House as an integral part of the Hunterian Art Gallery, they took pains to ensure that the sequence of rooms exactly reflected the original.
Virtually the same views and effects of natural light are enjoyed, as 78 Southpark Avenue stood only some 100 metres away.
Other areas of the original house – cloakroom, kitchen, bathroom, and secondary bedrooms – have not been reconstructed.
Find out more at the Mackintosh-Architecture section of the University of Glasgow
The interiors, completed in 1981, have been furnished with the Mackintoshes’ own furniture – all to Mackintosh’s design – and decorated as closely as possible to the original.
The selection of bric à brac, fitted carpets, curtains and other soft furnishings were based on contemporary descriptions of the house and photographs of Mackintosh interiors of the period.
Original text from University of Glasgow – The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
Charles Rennie Mackintosh Projects
House for an Art Lover – Glasgow
Queen’s Cross Church – Glasgow