"The level of detail and craft is something that's inscribed within the original design concept.  And so when I begin to draw, I know what kind of detailing I want the building to have"  - Tadao Ando

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I am certain that I had seen many details in my life before my introduction to design, but the first detail to I actually noticed and remembered were the ironwork ‘baton’ pieces that rested angled against the outside windows of the Tea Room of the Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The definition of the word detail will lead you to many meanings.

One definition states that a detail is an “attention to or treatment of a subject in individual or minute parts”, while another talks about the detail as “intricate, finely wrought decoration”.  Of the numerous definitions, two that are most interesting to me for this post outline a detail as 1) the philosophy and process of detailing while another take on detail references 2) the detail itself.

The Tea Room exterior window detail was intriguing to me because the detail, in a way, contained a little bit of the DNA characteristic of the design for the Glasgow School of Art: a linear, sculptural stem with an organic, lacy decorative “bulb” – reminiscent of complex plants as they dry and curl on themselves.

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