M226 137–143 Sauchiehall Street

This five-storey commercial building was erected speculatively, with lettable office accommodation on the upper floors above ground-floor shops. A tea room occupied the basement and part of the ground and first floors. The facade is in a rich Edwardian baroque style.

Authorship: The design is likely to be by John Keppie, and can be compared with his slightly later classical designs for the Hope Street tenement and Parkhead Savings Bank. A sectional drawing for the staircase, known from a tracing made in the 1930s by Ronald Harrison, shows an elaborate wrought-iron lift enclosure in the style of Mackintosh (a similar lift enclosure is also shown on one of Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh's drawings for 309–313 Sauchiehall Street, nearby). It was not carried out, however, and a much simpler enclosure was made instead. Harrison was a an early student of Mackintosh's architecture who had access to the records of the practice, and he may have believed that he was tracing a drawing by Mackintosh.