While the restoration of the Mackintosh Building is based on rigorous material and archival research, the project team is also faced with the challenge of doing justice to the creative legacy of the architect-designer himself. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s approach to interior design and architecture compels audiences to search for meaning in the organic and symbolic motifs of his ornamentation. This quest for understanding has underpinned several of the research questions related to the restoration, and has highlighted some of the ongoing issues regarding the way in which Mackintosh’s decorative schemes have been interpreted. Taking the library reconstruction project as a launch point, Mackintosh Research Fellow Dr Robyne Calvert will discuss Mackintosh’s architecture as related to the artistic genre of European Symbolism, and what this approach might reveal that can help our team with the faithful restoration of lost interiors.