Willow Tea Rooms: 0141 332 0521
The Willow Tea Rooms
Address: 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow
Location: northwest part of city centre, not far from Glasgow School of Art
Architect: Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Built: 1904
Building photo © Adrian Welch
Willow Tea Rooms Architect: Rennie Mackintosh
Building status: A-listed
Glasgow Tea Rooms for Kate Cranston. Mackintosh added the Willow Tea Rooms bow-windowed façade to an existing commercial building. The long window at first floor crosses the whole facade and looks forward to Modernism: it looks out from the Room de Luxe, a room that uses a dominant grey palette. The first tea room you reach above the jewellers is the White Room with interesting cut-outs in the plan. The Room de Luxe is reached circuitously by another flight of steps at the north side of the lower 'restaurant'.
There is a similar Mackintosh Tea Room at 97 Buchanan Street, Glasgow's other main shopping thoroughfare, dating from 1997.
Alley of the Willows
The Willow title originates from the Gaelic translation of Sauchiehall, 'alley of the willows' . The motif of the willow is integral to the Tea Room's interior.
Key Rooms:-
Room de Luxe
The Gallery
The Room de Luxe was recreated by Anne Mulhern in 1983. The Gallery too was recreated, in 1996. Thus visitors could once more get an idea of what the Willow Tea Rooms as designed by Mackintsoh really looked like.
The "Willow Tea Rooms" at 97 Buchanan Street is located next door to the original Kate Cranston Tea Rooms. Buchanan Street Tea Rooms contains the recreated White Dining Room and Chinese Room both from Ingram Street.
CR Mackintosh's involvement with Kate Cranston started at the Buchanan
Street Tea Rooms, 91-93 Buchanan Street.
Mackintosh worked with Cranston from 1897 to 1917 in all four of her Glasgow Tea Rooms, including the Ingram Street Tea Rooms and Argyle Street Tea Rooms.
Contact the Willow Tea Rooms: 44 (0)141 332 0521 fax +44 (0)141 332 0521
tea@willowtearooms.co.uk
Historic Glasgow: best glasgow buildings of the past
Scottish Architects of the past
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Glasgow walking tours
Key Rennie Mackintosh works:-
glasgow herald
glasgow school of art
hill house
house for an art lover
willow tea rooms
buchanan st tea rooms
hunterian gallery
Glasgow buildings : back to index
The Willow Tea Rooms were the last of four Glasgow tea rooms designed by Rennie Mackintosh for Kate Cranston
Willow Tea Rooms Context : Sauchiehall Street