House for an Art Lover

📌 Bellahouston, Glasgow
★★★

In 1901 famous Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh submitted House for an Art Lover in a German art magazine competition. He didn’t win (in fact, he was disqualified for late submission), but in 1989 the plans were resurrected and the real thing was born in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow as a monument and centre of learning about the man and his now famous creations. Except… money ran out and plans had to be scaled back, with large parts of the building instead given over to conference spaces. The music room, dining room and entrance hall are all magnificent and unmistakably Mackintosh, as is the front view of the gleaming exterior. But you can’t help thinking it’s a shame there’s not much more. Still, the audio guides manage to turn these few rooms into (seemingly) several hours of monologue – OK, maybe it’s fortunate the rest was never built as intended.