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Summary

Description

Cloak is a large, two-storey, T-plan, house in a secluded rural location, designed by internationally renowned Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh between 1906 and 1915. The house, which began as a square plan cottage and was later enlarged in two stages, makes reference to Scottish vernacular building styles and traditions with small windows and massive random rubble walls (their thickness emphasised by the deep, splayed reveals of the small windows). The house has a slated roof with bell-cast eaves. Window openings have irregular quoins in the form of roughly dressed boulders. Some of the window frames have been altered. Roofs are covered in overlapping grey slate.

Photographs of the interior (taken in 2014, Mackintosh Architecture) indicate that Mackintosh's distinctive fireplaces with T-shaped openings, and built-in bedroom wardrobes and cupboards are retained.

Statement of Special Interest

Cloak is a highly unusual work in the context of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's domestic architectural commissions. Its picturesque character and detailing respectfully references earlier Scottish vernacular building traditions and building techniques. The wall above the entrance, for example, curves gently inwards as it rises in the manner of vernacular building methods and workmanship of earlier centuries. Some of the window openings have large irregularly shaped quoins in the form of roughly dressed boulders (www.mackintosh-architecture). The 1908 drawings indicate a tile ridge, while the unexecuted designs of 1912 show the whole house covered with red tiles.

Cloak (also known as Mosside or Mossyde) was built in three phases. There is evidence that Charles Rennie Mackintosh was responsible for all three phases of the house (Mackintosh Architecture). Its complicated history, including some later remodelling during the 20th century, was partly misunderstood until the three main phases of its development were identified by Frank A. Walker (Walker, 1986; Mackintosh Architecture).

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was born in Glasgow and is regarded internationally as one of the leading architects and designers of the 20th century. He became known as a pioneer of Modernism, although his architecture took much inspiration from Scottish Baronial, and Scottish and English vernacular forms and their reinterpretation. The synthesis of modern and traditional forms led to a distinctive form of Scottish arts and crafts design, known as 'The Glasgow Style'. This was developed in collaboration with contemporaries Herbert McNair, and the sisters Francis and Margaret Macdonald (who would become his wife in 1900), who were known as 'The Four'. The Glasgow Style is now synonymous with Mackintosh and the City of Glasgow.

Mackintosh's work is wide-ranging and includes public, educational and religious buildings to private houses, interior decorative schemes and sculptures. He is associated with over 150 design projects, ranging from being the principal designer, to projects he was involved with as part of the firm of John Honeyman & Keppie (Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh from 1901). Another example of a large Glasgow villa that was substantially extended by Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh is Lilybank House (LB32853, category A). Mackintosh's most important work during this partnership was the Glasgow School of Art (LB33105), which was built in two phases from 1897 and culminated in the outstanding library of 1907. Other key works include the Willow Tea Rooms (LB33173), the Glasgow Herald Building (now The Lighthouse) (LB33087) and Hill House (LB34761), which display the modern principles of the German concept of 'Gesamtkunstwerk', meaning the 'synthesis of the arts'. This is something that Mackintosh applied completely to all of his work, from the exterior to the internal decorative scheme and the furniture and fittings.

Mackintosh left Glasgow in 1914, setting up practice in London the following year. Later he and Margaret moved to France, where until his death, his artistic output largely turned to textile design and watercolours.

Listed building record revised in 2019.

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