The Scotsman

Today he is feted as a visionary, one of the most influential architects of the last 100 years. His home city of Glasgow has built a tourist trail on his legacy. But in 1924 Charles Rennie Mackintosh believed that his career as an architect was over. He had resigned from his architectural practice, Honeyman, Keppie and Mackintosh, in 1914, as work dwindled. An attempt to set up alone in Glasgow had failed, as did his efforts to start again in London. The meteoric successes of 1895-1905 seemed like a long time ago. In 1924 Mackintosh and his wife Margaret, with little money and even less recognition, left Britain for a restorative holiday in the French sunshine.