The interiors of a tea room by Charles Rennie Mackintosh are to be recreated at the new V&A Dundee it’s been revealed on the architect’s 150th birthday.
Mackintosh designed Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms in 1907, which included an elaborate 13.5-metre long Oak Room. Considered one of the Scottish designer’s key projects, it shaped his ideas for the Glasgow School Art Library which was completed in 1909.
The Oak Room was saved by the Glasgow Museums when the building was demolished in 1971 and put into storage. It will now be painstakingly reconstructed inside the Kengo Kuma-designed museum when it opens to the public in September.
‘The project to conserve and restore an entire interior by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, unseen for nearly 50 years, has been one of the most exciting parts of creating V&A Dundee,’ said Philip Long, director of the museum.
‘When we set about developing galleries for the new museum telling the story of Scotland’s design history, it was vital Mackintosh was represented in a major way,’ added Long.
The £1.3m project has been partly funded by the Scottish Government, which has stumped up £100,000, while the Art Fund and Heritage Lottery have donated £200,000 and £400,000 respectively.
It’s not the only Mackintosh-designed tea room making the headlines. Over in Glasgow, his Willow Tea Rooms building at 217 Sauchiehall Street has just emerged from a two-year long, £10m restoration. The A-grade listed Art Nouveau space is the only example of a Mackintosh tea room to survive in its entirety.
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