Bosses at the Glasgow School of Art are facing demands to reveal how much insurers paid out after a fire destroyed its historic Charles Rennie Mackintosh building. The school’s management had insisted it was committed to a faithful reinstatement of the landmark, which was wrecked by two huge blazes in 2014 and 2018.
Insurance settlement sparks funding gap
However, it now claims an insurance settlement in relation to the second fire means it doesn’t have the cash for the £265 million project and has instead suggested reduced plans for a “creative and cultural production innovation district”. The announcement has sparked demands for the Scottish and UK governments to step in with funding – however, the art school is refusing to reveal how much it has received from insurers, meaning the shortfall for a complete rebuild can’t be calculated.
Labour MSP Paul Sweeney has led calls for a multi-agency special project vehicle to be set up to manage a full reinstatement of what is arguably Glasgow’s most important architectural treasure. He said: “The nature of the arbitration process meant that the art school had to settle for an amount less than the full reinstatement estimate of £265 million pounds. They have said they weren’t able to disclose the precise gap because of commercial confidentiality, but we’re going to have to have a partnership approach to deliver this, and that is going to mean we need to know how much additional funding from other sources is required on top of the insurance payout.”
Calls for national project support
Sweeney added: “I’ve called for a joint venture. It’s about the Scottish and UK governments putting their arms around the art school and trying to support the restoration as a national project. It’s the single most important architectural achievement in Scottish history. It’s one of the finest, if not the finest, building in Britain. It’s of international importance. It should be a development corporation-type approach where you put the building into the custody of a new joint venture vehicle, a restoration corporation, to pull everyone together. I would be looking for the Scottish and UK governments to very quickly step up and underwrite that, along with potential partners such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic Environment Scotland and potentially from private donors and benefactors who would step up and make contributions as well.”
The GSA’s report into restoration plans says several factors – including construction inflation, market volatility and economic pressure – have made the reinstatement of the Mackintosh far more expensive than predicted in a report in 2021. The report states fully restoring the Mackintosh is therefore “dependent on external funding sources that are uncertain”, and cites a “significant funding gap” needing to be resolved – however, it refuses to say what that gap is and insists the insurance payout is confidential.
Criticism over transparency
The painter and writer Lachlan Goudie has said the possibility of the art school not being restored to its former glory is a disgrace. He said: “This reeks of a lack of transparency, which has been very common over the past eight years.” The first fire ripped through the art school building on May 23, 2014. Four years later, an even more devastating fire broke out near the end of a £35 million restoration project.
