The Study Of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Ideological System Of Design

Charles Rennie Machintosh (1868-1928),architect, designer and artist, was hailed as a figure ahead of time caught in the difficult transition between the Victorian era and the Modern Age when arts were developing from Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau and Art Deco to Modernism. His artistic contribution formed a link between the foregoing and the following. Differ from mainstream Art Nouveau artists who appreciated curves and natural decorations, but opposed straight lines, geometric forms, and hated mechanization and industrialization, Machintosh enjoyed straight lines and simple geometric forms, and pursued a neutral color scheme. His artistic exploration laid a foundation for mechanization, batched production and industrialization of products. This paper reviewed the background and stylistic features of Arts and Crafts Movement, and their influenced on interior and furniture design, then analyzed various influences on Machintosh, thus concluded the reason accounting for his unique design style: any of his design projects was treated as an organic unity in which the whole was very much more important than the sum of the individual parts. He aimed to connect individuals with his work both functionally and spiritually, and believed that this could be achieved through a holistic approach to architecture and design which included the appropriate use of symbolism and the careful balancing of opposites: modernity with tradition, the masculine with the feminine, light with dark, and the sensual with the chaste. The work he produced possesses not only an inherent tension but a distinctive character going beyond the time, which foresaw the features of Modernism and Post-modernism. Finally, this paper come to the discussion on ways to unique design style adapted to the time when various trends of thoughts in design and different styles mushroom with the constant change of taste. As for furniture design, a proper combination of tradition and modernity, the vernacular and the international through multi-dimensional international communication is a effective way to lift Chinese design out of backwardness.