Thursday marks a decade since the first fire badly damaged Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Building. A tragedy turned into a disaster when the grade A-listed building of international architectural significance succumbed to a second fire in June 2018, near the end of a £35million restoration, taking the old ABC Cinema building with it.
After the administrators at Glasgow School of Art stated that plans to reinstate the building have stalled, there are calls for the work to be placed under the control of an independent body.
The Mackintosh Building is important to Glasgow and to Scotland, not just a building that forms part of the Art School campus. It’s future as a burnt out wreck casts a shadow over Garnethill and Sauchiehall Street.
“Voices are growing to establish a separate, arm’s length entity to take the rebuild forward,” heritage and regeneration expert Liz Davidson, who directed the restoration project after the first fire in 2014, told The Guardian.
“I have every sympathy for the school, but moving the responsibility for this enormous construction project to an independent body allows them to shake off some of the baggage of the past decade, to focus on what they provide for students, while a building preservation trust might have tax advantages and offer a fresh appeal to sponsors and funders.”
The school submitted an insurance claim after the 2018 fire. A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service report into the second blaze determined that the cause would never be known conclusively. “Following publication of the report insurers requested further information which the GSA provided to enable them to confirm policy cover,” a spokesman said.
“In the absence of this confirmation the GSA has chosen to initiate arbitration. The arbitration process is subject to a confidentiality provision which means we are not able to disclose any further details”. The art school say they will publish a new plan in 2025 but that restoration will cost more than the original £100 million estimate.
Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney has called for the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and Scottish Government to get involved in the project. Fellow Labour MSP Pauline McNeill said: “The art school needs to accept that the project is now so huge that they alone cannot achieve it.”
Stuart Robertson, the chief executive of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society said: “Glasgow needs this rebuild. The Mack is part of the city’s DNA and it will draw people back into the city centre. It’s too important just to disappear.”
The timeline of Glasgow School of Art fires and the damage to the building can be followed through the gallery below.
1. Glasgow School of Art fire, 2014
The first fire at Glasgow School of Art began shortly before 12:30pm on May 21, 2014. It began when flammable gases from a tin of expanding foam came into contact with the surface of a hot projector - which spread through the walls and ducts of the building into the library.
2. Glasgow School of Art fire, 2014
As the fire broke out, final year students had prepared their works for final degree show. Many feared they had lost their work due to the blaze.
3. Glasgow School of Art fire, 2014
Muriel Gray, a former student at the Glasgow School of Art and the then-chairwoman of the board of governors, said it was their “absolute worst nightmare”.
4. Glasgow School of Art fire, 2014
Saving the Glasgow School of Art was one of the biggest operations the fire service had tackled in the city in the 2010’s