Overview

This story, told through the dual narrative of mother and daughter, has as its backdrop a century of design, from the Glasgow Style, The Early Modernists, post war British Industrial Design to 21st Century Minimalism, as it ebbs and flows back and forth across the North Sea between Glasgow, Aberdeen, London and the Netherlands. It tells of loss and redemption through a century of change for women, and the price paid by one who dared to inhabit a profession wholly owned by men. At its heart is a 19th Century Glasgow townhouse which holds within its walls the essence of Gertrude's lost mother Ailsa, someone she has been denied all knowledge of by her controlling father for as long as she can remember. Her journey of discovery, from wartime Aberdeen in the 1940s to post-war London fleeing a scandal, Gertrude finally returns to Glasgow to renovate the townhouse where she feels a connection with her mother. Her life is turned upside down when a letter arrives from the Netherlands asking her to make contact at the earliest opportunity, and she learns that she has been living the wrong life for over half a century. Meanwhile Ailsa Bray is a young and unworldly Scot, brought together with bohemian Dutch socialite Truus Schräder in the heady social and political climate of Edwardian London by a mutual interest in design. At nineteen Truus is already advocating an unconventional style of family living, deemed scandalous at the time, and will go on, in 1924, to inspire and collaborate in the development of the first truly modern house, the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, with her lover and kindred spirit, De Stijl architect Gerrit Rietveld. The two women consolidate a bond of friendship and shared ideals: to live simple lives unfettered by society's norms and to design homes where women are freed from the trappings of domestic work and children flourish in open, loving and stimulating environments. Ailsa becomes the first woman to study architecture in the creative surroundings and culture of the new Mackintosh designed Glasgow School of Art and later, exiled through the Great War in the neutral Netherlands, under a Dutch modernist. Ailsa finally achieves her dream of an independent professional life with her young daughter when the past suddenly catches up with her and her worst nightmare comes true.

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9781527240698

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Reviews

"""A really engaging read, with beautifully constructed characters and a well paced story. The author has clearly researched the topic thoroughly and has built a wonderful story around it. Highly recommend.""""Underlying the stories of two fascinating women - daughter and mother - sat two North Sea countries and several cities, two destructive world wars, periods of extreme upheaval and change - philosophical and cultural and well as political and embittered; sewn-together with a most sensitively applied common thread. The research, and the research behind the research, was cleverly managed and set into play throughout.""""The Architectress is not only a great story but also a well researched piece of architectural history. I would thoroughly recommend to anyone who enjoys a beautifully written story which accurately reflects the style and era in which it is based.""""An excellent read; I want a film of it too! Well-researched and beautifully written, I was gripped from start to finish""Verified Amazon purchasers"

Author Information

Helen McNamara is an interior architect and author who graduated in 1976 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, before working as a designer in London and Argyll and as a senior lecturer in Glasgow. She has worked with BBC Education on digital learning content for the design of homes, and within a Scottish government digital learning and skills organisation where she held a senior management role. In recent years she has assisted a number of interior design projects including commissions by Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, Austin: Smith Lord Architects, Sir John Stirling Maxwell Allotments and private home interiors. Her passion is the architecture of contemporary homes and in 2017 she published her first novel, The Architectress, a story of three women that pays homage to the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht and the transformation of 19th century homes for 21st century living.She lives in a small 21st century apartment in Glasgow.

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