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Summary

Description

A terrace of nine two-bay houses built between 1878 and 1882. All are three-storey with attic and basement, built in polished ashlar. Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed the interiors for 14 (now no.34) Kingsborough Gardens for the owner, Robert Rowat, in 1901.

Nos. 22-36 with stops oversailing basement to a stilted arch keystoned doorway with hoodmoulds ending in square stops, a glazed fanlight and a panelled outer door. To the left, a canted window rises from basement to 1st floor. Remaining windows single or bipartite, in margins at 2nd floor. Plate glass sash windows. Individual cast iron balconies to 1st floor window over entrance door. Band course over ground and 1st floors. Moulded string course at eaves, modillion cornice. Slate roofs with corniced axial stacks and octagonal cans.

No.38 is three-bays with shallow advanced steps to the doorway as above with a two-storey canted window to the right with four single-light 2nd floor windows. At the south angle there is a corbelled tourelle to the 2nd floor with a conical roof. All windows have multi-pane glazing. No.38 has a droved ashlar flank with polished band courses and a two-storey projecting bay window with a conservatory to 1st floor.

Cast iron railings to steps and a basement level throughout the terrace.

Statement of Special Interest

Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed white-painted interior fittings and free-standing furniture, and a grey, pink and green stencilled wall decoration for the drawing room at no.34 Kingsborough Gardens (formerly 14 Kingsborough Gardens) (illustrations and plans in Billcliffe, pp.114-118). He also designed a dark-stained settle for the entrance hall, and a stencilled wall decoration for a child's bedroom on the second-floor. The furniture included a remodelled fireplace with carved mantelpiece and square purple glass inlays, fitted corner seating upholstered in grey linen with green and white stencilled decoration, two upholstered armchairs, and an oval table and two free-standing cabinets (Mackintosh Architecture).

In January 1988 the hall settle and fittings remained within no.34, but light fittings were noted as missing (confirmed missing by City of Glasgow District Council). It is not known if the hall settle and fittings remain in the building (2019).

Mackintosh's interiors were likely a private commission as no related entries appear in John Honeyman and Keppie's job or cash books. The commission may have been agreed before Mackintosh was taken into partnership with the practice, toward the end of 1901, when restrictions on private work were introduced (Mackintosh Architecture). Drawings of the work by Mackintosh himself survive and photographs of it were published under his name in Dekorative Kunst in 1902 and in Hermann Muthesius's publication, Das englische Haus (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). The 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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