![Detail from the House for an Art Lover. The whorls of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow rose appear in everything from ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/a/9/image.related.afrWideArticleLead.940x529.gxbbvc.png/1500530467555.jpg)
"In 25 words or less," asks the dapper Australian businessman, "What made Charles Rennie Mackintosh such a great architect?"
The answer from Peter Trowles, curator of the Mackintosh collection at the Glasgow School of Art, is almost sacrilegious in this, the third year since a fire seriously damaged almost a third of his most famous building and obliterated the invaluable Mackintosh library.
"He wasn't that great an architect, actually," says Trowles, before he redeems himself. "But Mackintosh was a design genius and a true visionary."
CRM, as he is often known, worked in Glasgow from the 1890s to the 1920s, riding the crest of the art nouveau wave while developing his unique style. As an architect immersed in the holistic philosophy of that movement, he designed everything from bold exteriors to extravagantly elegant furniture – so that you'd feel as if you were inside a work of art.
![The Art Nouveau-style House For An Art Lover in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/a/7/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174619472.jpg)
Some of his work will be familiar even to those who have never heard of him. The whorls of his Glasgow rose appear in everything from stained glass lead lights to wrought iron stanchions that support little more than a supreme sense of style.
There was a playfulness about Mackintosh's work, says Trowles.
The visitor seeking the definition of Mackintosh's genius is Sydney businessman Mark Alderson – with his wife, Elizabeth, sole guests on an ultra-exclusive Mackintosh tour run by Australian operator Carol Prior and her company By Prior Arrangement.
We are in the fabulously stylish House for an Art Lover, built only a few years ago in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park to designs Mackintosh drew for a competition in a German magazine.
In an extravagance that would have delighted CRM, the splendid country house in its mature garden five minutes from the centre of Glasgow has never been lived in and, in fact, has only the three actual rooms designed for the contest. Doors to the rest of the cavernous building lead to … well … nothing.
![Charles Rennie Mackintosh's original design for the Music Room, House for an Art Lover.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/a/2/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174725157.jpg)
Style and elegance
But, oh, what style and elegance awaits you inside. The rooms are literally breathtaking (if your breathing is susceptible to art and design). This is where you can feel Mackintosh's genius, not just observe it.
That pleasure is temporarily denied you at the Glasgow School of Art, Mackintosh's most substantial legacy, which was voted the best building of the last 175 years in a poll run by the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Sir Christopher Frayling, former rector of the Royal College of Art in London, described it as "the only art school in the world where the building is worthy of the subject".
![Writer Muriel Gray was on the street as a fire engulfed the Glasgow School of Art on May 23, 2014.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/a/1/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174947954.jpg)
Ironically, Mackintosh's genius contributed to the fire that almost wiped it out. He had cleverly incorporated wooden flues to move warm air around the building. In May 2014, as with the mythical Swiss cheese beloved of risk analysts, the holes lined up.
If an art student preparing her final exam exhibit hadn't used an inflammable foam, if it hadn't happened to enter the cooling fan of a projector, if the resulting fire hadn't spread quickly to oily paper and canvasses nearby and the conflagration hadn't occurred in a corner of the studio next to one of those vents …
Oh, and if someone in the previous century had thought to put fire-retardant dampers in the flues, then three floors including the priceless Mackintosh library might not have gone up in smoke in a fire that burnt for 12 hours.
While there was relief and pride that all 200 students and staff were evacuated safely, admirers and ordinary "Weegies" (Glaswegians) wept for what had been lost.
![GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - FEBRUARY 11: Builders at work in the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh Library on February 11, 2015 ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/9/y/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174376830.jpg)
Then, as the last flames were extinguished the following day, the offers of replacement books and funding started rolling in. Right now the art school is two-thirds of the way through a $55 million restoration.
Excitement and trepidation
As a student of engineering at another Glasgow institution many years ago, I lived along Renfrew Street from the Mackintosh building. So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I joined Trowles for a hard-hat tour.
About a third of the art school was badly damaged or completely destroyed. Yet some rooms adjacent to those obliterated were untouched.
![The Mackintosh House drawing room.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/5/m/8/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174771921.jpg)
Nothing remains of the elegant library with its carved black tulip wood tables and chairs – except for one chair not in the building at the time. However, only metres away, the lecture theatre has lost only its plaster ceiling.
Trowles recalls moving from space to space after the fire, not knowing what to expect behind each door. The room where Mackintosh's irreplaceable watercolours had been stored was a prime candidate for destruction. But when they opened the doors they discovered the art was unaffected, protected from the flames by good fortune and from the firemen's water by sturdy storage boxes.
The renovation of Glasgow School of Art is still 18 months from completion, but it will not be restored too precisely to its original Mackintosh state.
The art school will reclaim most of what the fire destroyed or the pragmatism of past decades eroded, but it will also be future-proofed. The new sprinkler system that was just a couple of metres from completion before the blaze will certainly be finalised.
The school expects annual visitor numbers of 20,000 plus to rise when it reopens. There's nothing like a near-death experience to attract attention.
Meanwhile, across the road in its modern annex, you can see scale models of the building and the library, and walk through a gallery of rescued furniture (including an electric clock that was way ahead of its time).
And for the time being there are the other Mackintosh buildings conveniently scattered around Glasgow. Rare gems, their charms are enhanced by the temporary unavailability of the jewel in the crown.
There's Hill House, with its signature window nooks and elaborate furniture designed for a spectacularly indulgent client. The Queens Cross church in Maryhill is now the home of the International Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society.
![The piano in Music Room, House for an Art Lover.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170720184526/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/c/6/a/a/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500174725069.jpg)
The Lighthouse in the former Glasgow Herald offices in the city is a centre for architecture and design with its own Mackintosh gallery, and the Glasgow Art Club has many of his decorative flourishes.
Mackintosh's Scotland Street School is a living museum of education. If you're lucky you'll hear tour groups of modern children getting a taste of schooling from their great-grandparents' day, with "strict" teachers leading chanted multiplication tables.
Next year is the 100th anniversary of Mackintosh's death and there is some discussion about whether there will be a major celebration then or whether they'll wait for the art school to reopen in 2019.
When it does, tens of thousands of Weegies – and the odd Australian – will get a chance to feel what it's like to be inside a work of art – one that we almost lost forever.
Jimmy Thomson was a guest on the Mackintosh tour thanks to By Prior Arrangement, the Glasgow School of Art and Glasgow Life tourism.
NEED TO KNOW
- Getting there Qantas and Emirates offer flights to Glasgow via Dubai.
- Staying there For quirkiness, citizenM hotel is just down the road from the art school while The Grand Central Hotel, over Central Station, lives up to its name.
- Getting about Try a hop-on, hop-off bus pass or the "Clockwork Orange" city centre underground train loop.
- Eating there Order Cullen skink (smoked haddock soup) at Two Fat Ladies.
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