The Glasgow Art Club

Home to the Glasgow Art Club since the late nineteenth century, 185 Bath Street is a Category A Listed building with a particularly rich architectural history. The Club was created from the amalgamation of two adjoining townhouses in 1893, with John Keppie transforming the ground floor into a sequence of interconnected rooms and a young Charles Rennie Mackintosh designing the picture gallery to the rear.

MAST’s involvement began with a detailed assessment of the building, bringing together structural and services investigations, access and conservation audits, statutory requirements and repair priorities. This established a phased strategy for securing the fabric of the building while supporting the Club’s continued use of its historic home.

An initial programme of urgent repairs was followed by a wider refurbishment, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Scotland. External fabric repairs and upgraded building services were combined with careful conservation work to the interiors, with particular attention given to the main picture gallery.

One of the most significant interventions was the reinstatement of the gallery’s historic glazed roof, restoring natural light to a space central to the life of the Club. A new hand-applied mural was also introduced, developed from Mackintosh’s original sketches and surviving fragments of historic material, allowing an important element of the gallery’s original character to be reinterpreted.

The phased approach balanced essential repair and modernisation with the conservation of the building’s distinctive architectural fabric, helping secure its continued role as a setting for art, exhibitions and cultural activity.

The project was recognised with the Glasgow Institute of Architects Design Award for Conservation in 2015.