A backbone of the research into the life and work of Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) is Thomas Howarth’s (1914-2000) „Mackintosh and the Modern Movement“, first published in 1952: although far from being the ultimate publication on Mackintosh it established a sound basis for later research and set out important markers for it. Howarth started work on his book when family members, clients, colleagues and contractors were still alive and thus drew on unique first-hand insights and information.
In 1977 the present second edition of Howarth’s biography was published by Routledge & Kegan Paul and just like the first edition discusses major aspects of Mackintosh’ life and career. Among them are his relationship with and position in Art Nouveau and the Celtic Revival, parallels between his and the work of e.g. Frank Lloyd Wright, Hendrik Petrus Berlage and the Vienna Secession or his crisis of the years 1907 through 1911.
As Howarth also precisely develops, the ten years Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, built in two stages between 1896 and 1906, took to complete spans his years of major success: during this decade he e.g. designed the Queen’s Cross Church, the Windyhill and Hill Houses and the Willow Tea Rooms, all of which contributed to his, though short-lived, Europe-wide recognition. All of the above were built in and around Glasgow, a narrow scope that, as the author explains, is rooted in the city’s particular environment: although it was the city’s middle-class that commissioned him, their number (and possibly also their intellectual scope) was limited and possibly drove Mackintosh away from Glasgow.
Howarth’s amalgamation of architectural, design and social history make for a compelling and insightful read that despite its age still holds valuable lessons on the fascinating life and work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
