In this essay I will discuss how Charles Rennie Mackintosh contributed to Scottish architecture. I will investigate his influences and how he affected architecture in Scotland throughout his life. Born on 7 June 1868 in Glasgow, Mackintosh became interested in architecture as a profession from an early age and, at the age of sixteen, obtained an apprenticeship with John Hutchison. . To complete his apprenticeship, he enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in 1884, where he met Margaret MacDonald, an artist and his future wife. Due to ill health, Mackintosh often spent weekends in the countryside, sometimes traveling with Herbert McNair, a friend who worked at the architectural firm Honeyman and Keppie, (of which Mackintosh would later become a partner). Mackintosh delighted in drawing from nature, particularly anything with an interesting or striking color or shape, often returning with samples to draw later in more detail. Furthermore, from these travels, he discovered that each leaf and each petal was unique, a fact which he often applied in subsequent works. Together with Herbert McNair and his wife Frances MacDonald, (who was Margaret's sister) Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald would later form a group known as 'The Glasgow Four'. The Four were leading members of the Glasgow School and were known for their distinctive form of art combining Celtic motifs and Symbolist style, and later for being leaders of the Art Nouveau movement in Britain. Their art has received mixed reviews and has been criticized by some; receiving official disapproval from Walter Crane, a very prolific writer of the time; However they were acclaimed with appreciation as the 'School of Spooks' by Gleeson White, editor of the public arts...... middle of paper ......nt of trees, plants and flowers. The result of the fusion of these influences led to the unique Mackintosh style which was an extension of Scottish baronial architecture, as can be seen in the Hill House designs, with the inclusion of towers and crow steps in the construction, giving it a style very reminiscent of 17th century town houses. The interior also shows how Mackintosh had moved away from Art Nouveau, as there are few examples in the building. Instead, the interior shows what Howarth calls a "remarkable advance in contemporary work in Britain, or abroad". Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London, 2007), p. 74T. Howarth, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Modern Movement, (London, 1977) p. 6M. Fazio, M. Moffett, L. Wodehouse, A World History of Architecture, (London, 2008), p.. 434-435