Getting creative in 2018 - at The Mackintosh Church

A Happy New Year to everyone. We're looking forward to counting down the next few months until we open the doors of Mackintosh at the Willow in June - with the project team, site team and all our partners, associates and master crafts people busy making that happen. Our schools and community programme continues and our Stencilling Stations begin again from February. Our first creative workshop of 2018 has just completed and was a great success. We worked with The Lansdowne House of Stencils and our hosts the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society to run a gesso making workshop at the beautiful venue of The Mackintosh Church at Queen's Cross. Lots of great feedback and thanks to everyone involved for making it a great success. 

Christmas Wishes and looking forward to 2018

We're looking forward to an exciting New Year when we launch Mackintosh at the Willow and reopen the doors of the original Mackintosh Tea Rooms at No. 217 and the new integrated Visitor Centre at No. 215. We'll also be joining the celebrations for Mackintosh150 and the 2018 year long programme of events to celebrate Mackintosh and his legacy. We'll be sharing more news in January and throughout the year. Thanks to everyone for their support in 2017 and we wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the team at The Willow Tea Rooms Trust.

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Mackintosh 150

It's very exciting to be part of the Mackintosh 150 year long programme of events for 2018, to celebrate his 150th anniversary. We’re working with other Mackintosh heritage partners across Glasgow and further afield, as we collectively celebrate Mackintosh throughout 2018 and beyond.

We and all the partners involved hope to share Mackintosh’s legacy and to inspire younger generations and their interest in art and design.

With Glasgow home to the world’s finest collection of Mackintosh design and buildings it’s fantastic to be able to share and encourage visitors to explore and enjoy the many wonderful buildings and learn and experience more about Mackintosh’s wonderfully creative genius and design legacy.

And of course we’re delighted to launch Mackintosh at the Willow when we reopen the fully restored original Mackintosh Tea Rooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street in early June 2018 and the new Exhibition and Visitor Centre next door at 215 Sauchiehall Street.

Look out for more news on our website, Facebook and Twitter on the events and activities planned for Mackintosh at at the Willow and for the Mackintosh 150 programme as we'll be sharing more news from January as we count down count down to opening on 07 June.

 

Master crafts on the restoration

Delighted to meet John Creed and Alan Dawson today, both master blacksmiths and two of the expert makers involved in the restoration. Alan is working with large forged work with steel, making the external attachments to the façade and John is fabricating internal lamps in brass and copper. Here’s a sneak preview of one of the birds and one of the bells Alan is making for the signage on the external façade. 

Visiting Glasgow Gaelic School

We had a great afternoon visiting and working with the pupils of Glasgow Gaelic School. Everyone seemed to enjoy creating some lovely and very colourful stencils as well as learning more about Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Thanks to all the pupils and teachers for their warm welcome and enthusiasm. 

Dress by design - 1903 to 2018

Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald were involved in every aspect of design of the original Tea Rooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street. That includes the architectural, external and interior designs, furniture, cutlery, menus and even the waitress uniforms.  This is one of our favourite photographs of two of the waitresses at the time -with thanks to the CRM Society for use of the photograph. Plus a more recent one of the students at Cardonald College, who are busy planning and designing the new waitress uniforms for when we open next summer.

Garnetbank Primary Aftercare Club

Thanks to the lovely pupils and their teachers from Garnetbank Primary Aftercare Club who came along to our Stencilling Station and had a go at creating some lovely stencils. Great to see lots of focus and learning going on and Charles Rennie Mackintosh as well as creating some great art!

St Aloysius Junior School class visit

It was nice to welcome some of the girls and boys and their teachers from St Aloysius' Junior School who visited our Stencilling Station last week. We were very impressed with their excellent stencilling and excellent behaviour! It's also great to know the students will be learning about Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Kate Cranston as part of their studies. We look forward to welcoming more students from St Aloysius and other schools in the future.