The temperance movement was becoming increasingly popular in Glasgow at the turn of the century and Miss Cranston had conceived the idea of a series of "art tearooms", venues where people could meet to relax and enjoy non-alcoholic refreshments in a variety of different "rooms" within the same building.

Mackintosh designed stencilled friezes depicting opposing pairs of elongated female figures surrounded by roses for the ladies' tearoom, the luncheon room and the smokers' gallery.

The design concept foresaw a place for the ladies to meet their friends, and for the men to use on their breaks from office work – an oasis in the city centre.

Willow was the basis for the name of the tearooms, but it also formed an integral part of the decorative motifs employed in the interior design, and much of the timberwork used in the building fabric and furniture.

Entrance to the room was by way of a magnificent set of double doors which featured leaded glass decoration, hinting at the colours and motifs to be found beyond.

Mackintosh's redesigned external façade was a carefully considered asymmetric, abstractly modelled composition with shallow curves on some areas of the surface, and varying depths of recesses to windows and the main entrance.

The ground floor entrance door is placed far to the left of a wide band of fenestration, both of which are recessed below the first-floor level, the location of the Room de Luxe.

To emphasise the importance of this room, Mackintosh designed a full width bay window, projecting the façade outwards with a gentle curve.

The asymmetry of the composition was continued by widening the left side windows and creating another gentle curve in this part of the façade, extending through both storeys.

This decision, plus the use of small paned windows and ornamental tile inserts forming a chequered border around the perimeter of the façade, gave it an elegance and lightness of touch appropriate for its purpose.

Though Daly's adapted the Willow Tearooms building as part of their department store, the façade was unchanged above their ground floor plate glass shop window and fascia, the moulded plaster frieze could still be seen above the ground floor shopfittings, and the Room de Luxe remained in use as the department store tearoom until they closed around the start of the 1980s.

The restoration project is complemented by the creation of a retail outlet, education, conferencing and visitor centre in the adjoining 215 Sauchiehall Street premises.

Large quantities of furniture to Mackintosh's designs have also been reproduced for use in the various parts of the Tearooms (the originals being lost or in private and museum collections throughout the world).

One of the most celebrated spaces in the building, the Room de Luxe, has been fully restored and includes a suite of specially commissioned furniture, re-created chandeliers, gesso panels and carpets.

The Tearooms were operated under the governance of the Trust as a social enterprise, with the objectives of creating training, learning, employment and other opportunities and support for young people and communities.

Long term survival of the venue following external financial pressures during the immediate preceding years was cited as the key factor in the change of ownership.

[3] Neil Munro provided an account of a visit by Erchie MacPherson and his friend Duffy to the Willow Tearooms first published in his 'The Looker-On' column in The Glasgow Evening News in 1904.