Charles Rennie Mackintosh
1868-1928

Scottish architect and designer, whose chaste, functional style exerted a strong influence on 20th-century architecture and interior design.

Trained at the Glasgow School of Art and influenced by the British Arts amp; Crafts Movement, Mackintosh rejected over-decorated Victorian styles in favor of a spare simplicity that featured geometric shapes and unadorned surfaces. Between 1899 and 1910 he designed several houses near Glasgow in this style, but his fame rests primarily on his 1899 designs for the Glasgow School of Art, with its austere rectangular framework, long, simple curves, and bare facade. His 1909 addition of a library was based entirely on straight lines and right angles: Its horizontal beams alternate with vertical pillars in a vigorous, rhythmic juxtaposition.

His work exerted an important influence on the growing 20th-century trend toward simplification and functionalism. Decades after his death, his work achieved a permanent place in the history of design. In the late 1970s the Mackintosh House, his studio-home in Glasgow, was reconstructed and opened as a museum.