Scotland Street School

After my long morning walk through the West End to see the city’s Victorian tenements and then on to be dazzled by Mackintosh’s Queen’s Church, I took a taxi to Scotland Street School.

Charles Rennie Macintosh was working at the architectural firm of Honeyman and Keppie when he designed the School: it  came to be his last major architectural project in Glasgow.

I entered the school to find a wide hall that “is articulated in such a way that it can be used as a theatre space” (Kliczkowski & Thorburn 65).  On either side I could see stairs leading to the second floor.  The stairwells  are situated in vertical towers that have massive walls of stained glass.          

In 1979, along with the decline of this section of Glasgow, the school closed and it is now a museum with a Mackintosh room that provided much of the information in this post.   Walking through the building one can hardly imagine the many artistic compromises Mackintosh endured; the school board had “a meagre budget,” and had to accommodate 1,250 students in only 21 classrooms.   And yet, mackintosh’s signature rose and geometric designs were in full view.

I was enamored with the school “cookery” classroom:

Some last looks at the school’s facade revealed details too good to leave unphotographed:

                                                                           Another rendition of Mackintosh’s signature rose, this time in the Scotland Street School gate.