(b Glasgow, 29 Nov 1904; d Pretoria, 27 July 1983). South African architect. He trained at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1923–7), in the Beaux-Arts tradition of Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker but was strongly influenced in his later development towards the newly emerging Modern Movement by his exposure to the work of van Heukelom and H. P. Berlage while on a student tour of Europe (1925–6). In 1929 McIntosh became South Africa’s second architectural graduate. His early work included the A. G. Munro House (1932), Pretoria, one of the earliest and best examples of the International Style in this country and a landmark in South African architectural development. It demonstrates a simple, rational outward expression, the direct result of the internal regulation of the parts. In 1933, with Norman L. Hanson and Rex Martienssen, McIntosh co-edited and privately published the propagandist quarterly Zerohour, which aimed at focusing attention on the Modern Movement. It contained a manifesto and examples of the work of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, as well as examples of local avant-garde architecture including the Munro House. Other significant works by McIntosh in Pretoria include the H. Munro House (1935); W. G. McIntosh House (1936); and Henderson Mansions (‘Whitecrook’) (1940; destr. 1984), an austerely rationalist block of flats notable for the use of pilotis. McIntosh played a crucial role in the development of the International Style in South Africa, but its progress was halted by the outbreak of World War II. His later work, sometimes in association with others, included Caxton printing works (1947); the Poynton building (1950); and the notable Customs House and Assize building (1951), all in Pretoria, which show acknowledgement of climate, local influences and materials.

• McIntosh, W(illiam) Gordon
  • Martienssen, Rex
  • groups and movements
    • Africa, §VI, 1(vi)(b): Western architecture: Modernism
    • South Africa, §III, 3: Architecture, c 1902–45
  • works
    • Pretoria