At the start of October I visited some friends in Glasgow. It was a very cold and wet weekend but I visited Hill House in Helensburgh by Mackintosh. For a ground-breaking piece of architecture, it's really quite similar to a suburban house in it's feel but I guess it just came first. He's said to have done some clever things with light and dark but I think he's just continued the gendering of space that the Georgians were very keen on- read my dissertation in it. The house is owned by the National Trust for Scotland so lovely old ladies talked to me in each room but it did make sneaky photo taking a bit of a challenge.
I stayed with a friend who lives in a tenement building. These are fascinating buildings and make the Tyneside flat look like its provincial little cousin. It's such a shame we don't have any in Newcastle. The ground floor flat has it's own grand entrance in the center of the block and a patch of garden while the others are accessed from a rather plain looking entrance to the side. This leads into a top lit staircase. Sam's was beautifully tiled in rich greens and off each landing were two flats. Strangely each flat had two front doors, one after the other, not like a porch or a draught lobby, but outer very heavy wooden doors with fierce looking metal bars to lock it and then the inner front door was one you would probably find on a nice Edwardian house. It made me wonder what the mean streets of the West End were like at night!
Today's been a busy day, I haven't managed to get a drawing done, sorry!
05_02_09 Some photos found and added.
