Designer(s) of the Month: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald

Week 3: The Hill House

The Hill House, Helensburgh, Scotland. ©2002, Jeremy Atherton. Courtesy of the Wikipedia Commons.

The Hill House is arguably Charles Rennie Mackintosh's most important, finest and largest domestic commission, and it's one where Margaret Macdonald's influence is not only apparent in the design, but where actual works of hers exist as well. [1]

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Drawing of The Hill House, 1903. © T & R Annan & Sons Ltd. Courtesy of the Design Museum, London.

Built for the publisher Walter Blackie in 1902-04 in Helensburgh, Scotland, this commission was a direct result of Mackintosh's work on the Glasgow School of Art building, the first stage of which Blackie had seen after its completion in 1899; when the two men finally met in person, Mackintosh showed Blackie the plans for Windyhill, a residence he had built for his friend William Davidson, in 1901, which further convinced Blackie that his decision to hire Mackintosh was the right one.[2] Fortunately for Mackintosh, Blackie felt that this own taste and views - wanting to avoid the characteristic Victorian heaviness of design and ornamentation that was popular at the time was especially important to him - coincided perfectly with that of Mackintosh's ideas of creating a total, integrated environment and insistence upon the use of a design that incorporated local sandstone, and which combined elements of the Scottish baronial tradition with a modern visual vocabulary.[3]

Interior hall of The Hill House. © T & R Annan & Sons Ltd. Courtesy of the Design Museum, London.

In describing the design and building of The Hill House, Blackie recalled that "the practical purpose came first. The pleasing design followed of itself..."[4] First and foremost, The Hill House was designed to be a home for a growing family, and Mackintosh's design reflected this. According to the Design Museum of London:

A narrow building running from east to west with all the major rooms looking south over the estuary, Hill House was foremost a practical family home with the library off the main hall designed for receiving clients and the nursery situated at the furthest end in the north extension where the kitchen, services and children’s rooms were housed.[5]

While Mackintosh took care of the architectural features and layout of the house, the interior was a collaboration between Mackintosh and Macdonald.[6] Macdonald worked alongside her husband, creating delicately embroidered curtains and lampshades and, most famously, the gesso panel Sleeping Beauty that hangs over the fireplace.[7] As Elizabeth Wilhide explains of Macdonald's contribution to this design, "If The Hill House is Mackintosh's finest achievement in the realm of domestic building, it is also among the most accomplished works of their creative partnership, powerful evidence of a shared sensibility."[8]

Margaret Macdonald, Sleeping Beauty. Courtesy of Undiscovered Scotland.

Of all the rooms in The Hill House, the bedroom is the one most often noted in its design, and is thought to be one of Mackintosh and Macdonald's most evocative interiors.[9] The intimacy of the bedroom is expressed in its soft, smooth white decoration and furnishings, contrasted by the few darker pieces of furniture (such as the iconic Hill House chairs, which can be seen in the image below), and its tonal purity and precision of detail are an excellent example of Mackintosh's concept of seemliness.[10] In fact, the reason the interiors of The Hill House are so polished-looking is that Mackintosh and Macdonald had been fine-tuning their aesthetic for some time by this point, both in their earlier commission of Windyhill and in their own home of 120 Mains Street.[11] At the Mains Street house in 1900, Mackintosh and Macdonald installed their first all-white sitting room, and experimented with the contrast of light "female" and dark "male" environments, and some of these same design ideas can be seen in The Hill House.[12]

Principal bedroom of The Hill House. © T & R Annan & Sons Ltd. Courtesy of the Design Museum, London.

As Mackintosh told the Blackie family when they moved into the house in 1904, "Here is the house. It is not an Italian villa, an English mansion house, a Swiss chalet or a Scotch castle. It is a dwelling house."[13]

Next week, we'll look at a different sort of Mackintosh and Macdonald interior - built not for the purpose of learning or living, but dining - the Willow Tea Rooms.


[1] Elizabeth Wilhide, "The Art of Space: Windyhill", "The Hill House," The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 87.

[2] Ibid., 82, 87.

[3] Design Museum online, "Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Architect + Furniture Designer (1868-1928)," http://designmuseum.org/design/charles-rennie-mackintosh (Accessed December 15, 2009).

[4] Elizabeth Wilhide, "The Art of Space: The Hill House," The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 88.

[5] Design Museum online, "Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Architect + Furniture Designer (1868-1928)," http://designmuseum.org/design/charles-rennie-mackintosh (Accessed December 15, 2009).

[6] Elizabeth Wilhide, "The Art of Space: The Hill House," The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 94.

[7] Ibid., 94-5.

[8] Ibid., 95.

[9] Elizabeth Wilhide, "The Art of Space: The Hill House," The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 94.

[10] Ibid., 94

[11] Design Museum online, "Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Architect + Furniture Designer (1868-1928)," http://designmuseum.org/design/charles-rennie-mackintosh (Accessed December 15, 2009).

[12] Ibid.

[13] Elizabeth Wilhide, "The Art of Space: The Hill House," The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1995), 95.