September 7 2015

Simpson & Brown Architects have been appointed to restore Glasgow’s Willow Tea Rooms and create an adjacent Charles Rennie Mackintosh visitor centre following an international design competition.

This follows the purchase of 215 Sauchiehall Street by The Willow Tea Rooms Trust, enabling a modern visitor, education and exhibition space to be built next to the repaired fabric of the 1903 tea rooms next door.

John Sanders, partner and heritage specialist at Simpson & Brown said that the new visitor centre would "... provide amenities, such as lifts and other facilities, which will be accessible from, but not interfere with, the tea rooms themselves or the experience they provide."

Sanders added: "Essentially we’re taking the tea rooms back to their celebrated past but also taking them forward in time to make it a unique architectural and design experience.”

A budget of £7m has been allocated to the project, £1m of which will go toward the repair and restoration of the Willow Tea Rooms, with the aim of having the work completed by 2018 – the 150th anniversary of Mackintosh’s birth.

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