Intriguing gem of magic from Charles Rennie Mackintosh

In partnership with City of Glasgow College, we are looking at some of the city’s outstanding buildings. First up, the former Daily Record building

THIS is a fascinating architectural gem in the heart of Glasgow. Just a couple of minutes’ walk from Central Station, it is literally hiding in plain sight. Glazed brick has seen some great use but the most notable one must be the former Daily Record building, with the facade designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The main entrance is on the Renfield Lane, there’s also a matching elevation facing St Vincent Lane. Built in 1906 by Honeyman & Bennie, the building was, at first, a three-storey rectangle structure.

Later, two stories of storage space were added. Even though the building seems to be made of two parts, it’s one continuous floor space. Although the building seems very different from what we can find in the area, in its structure it’s very similar to another newspaper building, the Lighthouse, former offices for the Glasgow Herald.

Extensive use of iron with poured concrete floors made it resistant to fire, so necessary for this building. This location combined not only offices for the journalists, but storage on the upper floor and a printing equipment in the basement.

After many years, the building was converted to flats. The distinct white reflective brick is used here to bring in as much light as possible to the very narrow street it is located in. Amazingly, we can even find bay windows on this building.

The emphasis on light capture is something that has been extensively thought of but the real genius lies in the overall composition. Large arches on the ground floor are made out of natural, light pink stone and almost blend with the alley.

Whereas, inspired by the Huntly Castle in Aberdeenshire, in the beautiful Scottish baronial style, a similar but grey natural stone on the last floor closes the building from the top so that it can blend in with the existing stone skyline.

Although Mackintosh worked with the glazed brick before, there aren’t many examples of its use in external elevations. Therefore, this building’s facade is a unique part of his work. With the blue brick base, a tree pattern of green brick and red brick rectangles span over the facade.

Although the drawing of the building was created and signed by Mackintosh, he wrote to his wife Margaret Macdonald “that in all [his] architectural efforts you have been half if not three-quarters of them”.