Volume 44, Number 3 · February 20, 1997
Big Mack
By Martin Filler
RECENT BOOKS AND EXHIBITIONS
Charles Rennie Mackintosh 1996-February 16, 1997; The Art Institute of Chicago, March 29-June 22; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, August 3-October 12 (previously at the Glasgow Museums, McLellan Galleries, May 25-September 30, 1996)
Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 19,
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928)
by Charlotte Fiell, by Peter Fiell
Taschen, 176 pp., $29.99
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
catalog of the exhibition,, edited by Wendy Kaplan
Glasgow Museums/Abbeville, 383 pp., $60.00
Mackintosh's Masterwork: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art
by William Buchanan, by James Macaulay, by Andrew MacMillan, by George Rawson, by Peter Trowles, foreword by Eckart Muthesius
Chronicle Books, 224 pp., $22.95 (paper)
In the fragmented and seemingly directionless world of late-twentieth-century architecture, no concept beguiles the popular imagination more than that of 'organic' design. The belief that all aspects of a comprehensive architectural scheme—from its landscape setting and the building itself to interior decoration—should be orchestrated as a seamless whole under the direction of one designer is the most enduring legacy from the last fin-de-siècle to our own. The longing for complete integration in architecture, from the broadest concepts down to the smallest details, with each reinforcing the other, explains much about the present-day fascination with the turn-of-the-century figures who brought the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk to the building art more fully than ever before. Theirs was no mere personal expression, but part of a widespread reaction against the new social divisions brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
Review, 3866 words
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