the art of Japan was all-important, especially in helping architects to
justify their interventions in the interior. In the ‘formal expression of
Zen’, one writer has explained, ‘interior and exterior were allowed to flow
smoothly one into the other by means of simple design and thoughtful
use of materials.’^8 Mackintosh was well aware of the license that gave him
to move from architecture into the interior. 45
Bedroom in the Glasgow studio flat of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret
Macdonald, designed by the couple in 1900 , and illustrated in the special summer
edition of The Studio, 1901.