Railway Terminus Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Scottish architect and designer\u00a0Charles Rennie Mackintosh\u00a0<\/a>has done it all \u2013 watercolours, decorative glass, furniture design and buildings. His most famous structure is the\u00a0Glasgow School of Art\u00a0<\/a>completed in 1909. His tall, straight back chairs are icons too, part of an exaggerated angular aesthetic he applied to interior design. He\u2019s been called the father of modernism or at least one of its parents because, like his contemporary\u00a0Frank Lloyd Wright<\/a>, Mackintosh pioneered functionality over fussy ornamentation.<\/p>\n The Mackintosh story all comes together at\u00a0The Lighthouse<\/a>, Scotland\u2019s Centre for Design and Architecture just off Buchanan Street in central Glasgow. It has devoted its entire third floor to Mackintosh drawings, writings and models. Now it has added a collection of his early works, called Unbuilt Mackintosh, to the existing display.<\/p>\n Mack participated in two architectural competitions early in his career and Unbuilt Mackintosh features those submissions. They\u2019re represented by five three-dimensional models constructed expressly for the exhibit from the architect\u2019s original drawings and plans.<\/p>\n The first of these competitions, in 1892, was for the Soane Medallion, a student prize offered by the Royal Institute of British Architects. The magazine\u00a0The British Architect<\/i>\u00a0called Mack\u2019s terminus submission \u201ca clever rendition of a freely-treated Late Gothic style.\u201d He didn\u2019t win.<\/p>\n In 1898 a competition was held to design an industrial hall and concert hall for the upcoming Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901. Mackintosh was working for the architectural firm of\u00a0Honeyman and Keppie\u00a0<\/a>at the time and submitted four designs, the industrial hall, a bar and dining room for the hall and two versions of a concert hall, a conventional design and a more radical one. His Alternate Concert Hall called for a massive domed roof 55 metres in diameter supported by 12 cast-iron roof trusses resting on 12 buttresses on the external wall, an engineering improbability at the time (remember this was 1898). He didn\u2019t win that one either.<\/p>\n His structures were never built but one can see the beginnings of what would become his stylistic calling card \u2013 strong and simple.\u00a0 Unbuilt Mackintosh was installed last October as part of Creative Mackintosh Festival. It proved so popular that The Lighthouse succumbed to popular demand and made Unbuilt Mackintosh a permanently addition to the existing one.\u00a0Make no mistake,\u00a0Charles Rennie Mackintosh is Glasgow\u2019s favorite son and\u00a0visitors can\u2019t escape the flood of Mackintosh tours and trinkets that carry his name. Or his legacy.<\/p>\n