Chapter 2 of 24
Glasgow School Of Art. Section
This drawing reminds us very strongly that Mackintosh worked like an architect. He used the vehicle of drawing to explore his ideas, to examine the needs of the structure of the building, to look at the surfaces of the building, to think about the everyday things which really matter in a building, as well as a totally different level of thinking about the artistic nature of a building or of ... I don't like the word 'artistic'. I don't think that Mackintosh is an artistic architect, although I often think about Mackintosh as an artist. At one level, every architect is concerned with the type of building he creates. But at a totally different level - and that's really what this drawing reminds us - an architect is after all just a sort of upper-class tradesman. He really has to think about how buildings are made as well as what he wants the building to say.