V&A Dundee secures Mackintosh tea room funding boost

A project to restore Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s iconic tea room in the V&A Dundee has received a funding boost.

Plans to conserve, restore and display a complete tearoom interior by the Glasgow designer have been awarded a total of £300,000 from Art Fund and the Scottish Government.

V&A and Dundee City Council are working on the project with Glasgow Museums, which rescued the Oak Room interior from destruction in 1971 and took the interior into its museum collections.

Support of £200,000 from Art Fund and £100,000 from the government has been added to the pot for the

£1.3 million project, which has also seen previous input from the National Lottery.

Philip Long, director of V&A Dundee, said: “The project has been one of the most exciting parts of creating V&A Dundee. As a designer, architect and artist, Mackintosh is of worldwide significance.

“He has been an inspiration to very many designers, including the architect of the V&A, Kengo Kuma.

“When we set about developing galleries for the new museum telling the story of Scotland’s design history, it was vital Mackintosh was represented in a major way.”

Stephen Deuchar, director of Art Fund, said: “This marks the first instance of us specifically funding a major conservation project in its own right.

“The Oak Room is one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s greatest achievements.”

The Oak Room was the largest Mackintosh interior for Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms in Glasgow. The 13.5 metre-long, double-height room, was completed in 1908.