Glasgow School of Art

The next stop on our Mackintosh tour was the Glasgow School of Art. Mackintosh designed it at the turn of the century. What is truly remarkable is that he was only 28 at the same, a very junior employee at the firm, and had only recently "graduated" from GSA, having been a night student there for several years. Someone at GSA very definitely had an eye for genius and a willingness to take big risks. Unfortunately, the school has a no interior photos policy (privacy of students and faculty) and so what little I have is outside. The best room on the inside, we thought, was the library, a small photo of which I grabbed off the GSA site. Mackintosh was a bit of a control freak--great architects are like this, I surmise--it was not enough to design the entire building; he had to do all its contents too, furniture, even the signage. For the Willow Tea Rooms (next stop), he even did the silverware, towels, tables and chairs, all now quite famous.