This building was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1901 but was not built until nearly 100 years later. The origin of the design was an ideas competition organised by "Zeitschrift fur Innendekoration" an interior design publication. Mackintosh and his wife, artist Margaret Macdonald, may have heard about the competition for the design of a large country house when they were in Vienna. The requirement, for a house where the art was to consist of the house itself, was tailor-made for Mackintosh but he only had three months to complete the drawings. They were submitted under the title "Der Vogel" (The Bird). Whether it was lack of time or an error, the Mackintosh design did not include the specified number of perspective drawings of the interior and was not considered for the prize. But the drawings were published afterwards and it was these that prompted Glasgow architects to propose creating the building in the city at Bellahouston Park in the 1980s.
The Mackintosh design for a large country house has been modified to create an international graduate study and conference centre for the Glasgow School of Art (which in turn is housed in another magnificent Mackintosh building in the centre of city). There is also a high quality cafe and design shop and displays of Mackintosh drawings.
The exterior of the building is faced in harling, a traditional Scottish material (the Great Hall at Stirling Castle, built in the time of King James III and King James IV in the 15th and early 16th centuries, has recently been restored using this material). Of course, Mackintosh's unique embellishments are clearly visible both on the exterior and the interior of the building (see below). Nobody else could design a building such as this. His fireplace, furniture, lights and decorative panels have all been incorporated into this impressive, "modern" building.
