Back to School

 This morning when I woke up my room was lit with a shaft of sunlight from a skylight that I hadn't noticed yesterday. After breakfast I took the subway from Cowcaddens to Shield Street for Scotland Street School, designed by CRM for the education board who asked for some changes to remove some decorative features, to change the dark colours into regulation cream, and to increase the windows to increase the light. CRM fought these changes but had to give way to them, although he managed to keep his mark on the school while the board weren't monitoring and the final cost was 25% over budget, which seems was the pattern with the budget (not the estimate though) and the cost of his designs.

I was interested to see how CRM applied his design eye to such a practical and functional situation, such as the stylised thistle head for Scotland and trees of knowledge & learning for the school. As at the Glasgow School of Art there were symbols of seeds germminating and growing, again for knowledge & learning. Somehow the school had that schoolboy fart aroma - very clever if it was intended to evoke the schooldays!

While I was at the school it rained - real rain, not a light shower, but by the time I left it had cleared up so I crossed the road back to the subway - by the time I was underground waiting for the train it was raining real rain again, so the dry spells have been very kind to me. This time I took the subway to Ibrox, for a walk to House for an Art Lover - given that this is the Subway recommended for this venue i was surprised that the route was unmarked and I soon realised that I wasn't heading the right way but thanks to 3G and online maps I got there. It was the same for the Mackintosh Church yesterday - maybe Glasgow doesn't go in for tourist signs?

I had a delicious lunch at House For an Art Lover before taking an audio tour around it. The house was built in the late 1970's based on designs submitted by CRM and his wife Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh for a European competition of designs for a house for an art lover. They didn't win the competition, possibly due to submitting unfinished/incomplete designs. Because the designs were not complete, those who were using them looked at what they had in fine detail, and where anything was missing they looked at what CRM had done in other locations. So this is a good place to visit after seeing a few other places to see what was used for reference here!  It is a marvellous place, and the audio tour was really helpful. In the house, it's decor and furnishings I can see so much of how CRM still influences design today 1 again, such an important and influential stepping stone from Victorian taste to Modernism & beyond. The Interpretation Centre is equipped with Apple Mac(intosh)'s! 

The sun shone as I left House For an Art Lover, and as I walked to the bus stop for the no. 9 to Kelvingrove Museum I passed a couple who I'd noticed at one of the other CRM sites - it wasn't the first time I'd recognised other pilgrims - we all seem to be doing the same places but not necessarily in the same order. Apparently at one time there was a regular scheduled Mackintosh bus, going between each of the sites, but not at the moment. It would be rather handy, but I think I'd miss the sense of adventure or discovery that I'm getting doing it this way. And for the time being I'm happy not to drive - that could lead to one adventure too many :-)

I wasn't sure which side of the road to get the no. 9 bus from, so I asked the bus driver who said I'd got the right side but that I needed the no. 9 that had just passed us because he wasn't going that far, and that he'd take me past that bus to another bus stop so I could get on it. Wasn't that helpful?!

The Kelvingrove art gallery and museum is a grand wonder of a Victorian building with a hint of Art Nouveau. Think the V&A and the Natural History and the Science museums in Kensington, and you are almost there. Where else would you find a Spitfire flying over an elephant, a moose and an ostrich? The Kelvingrove doesn't contain a huge amount of CRM or MMM work, but what it does have was well worth seeing. But the big surprise treat for me is that it's home to Salvador Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross - wow! I had no idea about this (shows how little I know!). Now, this might well be a CRM pilgrimage, but my next train adventure is to south east Spain and will include a visit to Figueres to the Dali museum there.  So I appreciated seeing the original here - it's hung a bit higher than I wonder if it was intended to, but considering the attack in 1961 when a young man attacked it with a sandstone brick I am not surprise that it is hung the way it is.

Kickout time was 5pm, and I didn't need to be at my dinner destination for a while yet so I sat on the steps of the museum watching the world go bY before catching a bus.... or trying to.... it turned out that the useful bus service travel planner was suggesting I get a bus to go just to the next bus stop which, as the bus driver pointed out, I could see from where I was trying to get on! So I walked to Paparino's on Byre Street where I met Kingsfold from the Ship of Fools online community  for dinner - I enjoyed the evening and it was good to put a face and name to an otherwise online contact (I am daisydaisy in that world)