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Summary

Description

Southwest part by J T Rochead, 1869-71, Renaissance villa converted to educational use; additions by James Miller 1936 and later.

Northeast part John Keppie with Charles Rennie Mackintosh (John Honeyman and Keppie) 1895. Former medical building of Queen Margaret College, 1895.

Southwest Part: Two-storeys, three- by five-bays. Polished ashlar, rusticated angles and flanking entrance strips. Sash and case windows, four-pane glazing.

Entrance Front: central Doric portico with coupled columns, panelled frieze with triglyphs, mutule cornice, balustrade over. Ground floor windows in recesses, mask keyblocked, arched with moulded archivolts, panelled aprons. Ground floor dentil band, cornice. First floor windows, blind balconies, segmental, consoled shell-headed cornices, tripartite central window with scroll supporters. Deep bracketted modillion cornice with dentil band. Corniced parapet walls, balustrade to ground floor.

South Return: repeating detailing of main elevation with single-light windows at first floor. Extension to south return (1936), seven main bays with lower east bay; channelled ground floor, two first floor aediculed windows, consoled segmental pediments. Dentil band, cornice.

Interior: double-height coupled column Doric entrance hall with arcaded gallery. Elaborate plasterwork, top-lit with oculi, compartmented, corniced, barrel-vaulted ceiling.

Northeast Part: Two-storey, L-planned extension with facetted stair tower in re-entrant angle. Art Nouveau. Snecked rubble. Projecting entrance bay attached to tower. Sculpted panel over doorway with date. Stylised balustraded balcony over. Three simple, narrow single-light windows to right. Parapet, swept over entrance, eaves breaking through elliptically arched opening. Two sash and case windows with eight-pane glazing and keyblocked, shaped lintels to left. Tower with narrow stair lights. Open-arched belfry with impost band. Cornice. Bell-cast roof. Rubble and ashlar boundary wall. Cast iron railings and entrance gate to west, channelled, corniced piers with sculpted urns.

Statement of Special Interest

Begun by JT Rochead in 1869, North Park House was completed in 1871 by John Honeyman as a private residence. It was purchased in 1884 by the philanthropist Isabella Elder and gifted to Queen Margaret College, Glasgow's higher-education institution for women. Arts courses were initially taught at the house from autumn 1884 and, from 1888, after the addition of a laboratory, sciences were added. Glasgow Royal Infirmary admitted female medical students for the first time in 1890 and a medical school was then established at the College. (Mackintosh Architecture)

Queen Margaret College was incorporated into the University of Glasgow in 1892, and continued to exclusively provide higher education of women. In 1895 the firm of John Honeyman & Keppie were responsible for the design of the two-storey yellow sandstone building with a tower, which greatly improved the college's medical school facilities. This new 'Anatomical Department' was purpose-built for the teaching of a university-level medical curriculum for the College and provided all the necessary equipment. In architectural terms, there is good stylistic evidence that Charles Rennie Mackintosh was involved in the design of this building (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.

References

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