Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Furniture

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DESIGN ESSAY

CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH’S FURNITURE

    Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect and designer whose chaste, functional style exerted a strong influence on 20th century architecture and interior design. He was born on June 7th, 1868, one of eleven children in the Townhead area of Glasgow. From these beginnings, he has become one of the most celebrated designers and architects of his generation. He trained as an architect at a local firm and studied art and design at evening classes in the Glasgow School of Art (Which he then went on to design the front of). He rejected overdecorated Victorian styles in favour of a spare simplicity that feature geometric shapes and unadorned surfaces. In Europe, the originality of Mackintosh’s style was quickly appreciated and in Germany and Austria he received the acclaim that he was never truly to gain at home. By 1914 he had despaired of ever receiving recognition in Glasgow.

    His main influence was Japanese designs and this is obvious from his furniture, which combines attenuated straight lines with subtle curves. He took his inspiration from our Scottish traditions and blended them with the flourish of Art Nouveau and the simplicity of Japanese designs. Mackintosh was an important interior designer and is maybe best known for his high-backed chairs which is what I am going to be looking at in this essay.      He designed over 400 pieces of furniture in a working life of just 25 years and is widely recognised as one of the most significant figures in 20th century design. Mackintosh, all but forgotten, died in London of cancer, December 10th, 1928; decades later his work achieved a permanent place in the history of design. In this essay I am going to be looking at two of his chairs and comparing them. I chose to do Mackintosh’s furniture because I think his designs are very interesting and imaginative; I especially like his high-backed chairs.

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    His furniture was usually intended for specified environments, few of his designs would have been available through normal retail outlets. Working for private, style-conscious clients and free from commercial restraints, Mackintosh was able to design imaginative, and often daring furniture .

    The best known and most characteristic of Mackintosh’s designs is the high-backed chair. He was not concerned with the craftsmanship or comfort of his high-backed chairs, more of the look. There came a time in Mackintosh’s career when his high-backed chairs became so unfunctional that they were merely being produced to be pleasing to the ...

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This assignment gives an insight into the designer, showing some knowledge of his work. There does need to be more comparisons made and more of an analytical approach to the two designs would have made this a better report. ***