Attached to the Hunterian Art Gallery, this is a reconstruction of the home that Charles Rennie Mackintosh shared with his wife, noted designer/artist Margaret Macdonald. It's fair to say that interior decoration was one of their strong points; Mackintosh House is startling even today. The quiet elegance of the hall and dining room on the ground floor give way to a stunning drawing room and bedroom upstairs. Visits are currently self guided.
The visual highlight is the white-as-white drawing room. There's something otherworldly about the mannered style of the beaten silver panels, the long-backed chairs and the surface decorations echoing Celtic manuscript illuminations. You wouldn't have wanted to be the guest who spilled a glass of red on this carpet.
A new space, the Mackintosh Interpretation Centre, will open in the spring of 2021 with new insights into the Mackintoshes' daily life. The house will perhaps become part of the new museum at Kelvin Hall, but likely not until at least 2025.
