The Mackintosh building at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), Scotland's finest piece of architecture, has been doubly destroyed by two fires. Its charred carcass is tightly shrouded in white plastic sheeting, like a vacuum-packed Christo sculpture.
A 12-year saga of destruction, rebuilding, and yet more destruction, underscored by political and institutional wrangling, reached an apologetic conclusion of sorts. The recent announcement stated that Charles Rennie Mackintosh's exquisite art nouveau creation is unlikely to be rebuilt in its original form because of stratospheric cost.
Cost and Future Plans
The GSA said a full rebuild or 'faithful reinstatement' of the burnt-out 1909 landmark, while still a long-term ambition, would cost £265m, four times previous estimates and five times the GSA's annual turnover. The school admitted it could not afford this comprehensive reconstruction on its own and outlined moving forward by stabilising the building's remaining shell and removing external scaffolding. The plastic shroud will also be removed, revealing the surviving stone walls. How things progress from there is still debated. The cost of stabilisation work, though unconfirmed, is understood to have been covered by a recent settlement with insurers following arbitration.
Calls for National Support
Professional bodies including the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Institute of British Architects gave a cautious welcome to the current interim strategy but said that 'faithful reinstatement should remain everyone's preferred outcome'. In a joint statement, they added: 'We need leadership from the Scottish and UK governments to find the resources needed to ensure the faithful reinstatement of the Mackintosh building and to secure its future as a revitalised creative hub serving Glasgow, Scotland and the world. A building of such national importance requires a national response if future generations are not to curse us for its loss or mutilation.'
Labour MSP for Glasgow Paul Sweeney echoed this call. Writing in the Architects' Journal, Sweeney argued that a joint venture partnership approach to rebuilding the Mac should now be considered. '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,' he said.
Criticism and Heritage Concerns
Others have been more critical. Architect and former GSA lecturer Gordon Gibb said: 'The loss of the Mackintosh building would be catastrophic. Even a partial rebuild, or a soulless facade retention with highlights, would result in the loss of our heritage and in the further diminution of Glasgow. If you do not rebuild it as it was imagined, you lose all of its integrity – and you do nothing more than celebrate the incompetence of its temporary custodians that led to its demise.'
The entire debacle began with a small fire breaking out at an end-of-year student show in 2014, when an aerosol canister of expanding foam placed near a hot projector caused flammable gases to ignite. It could and should have been contained, but Mackintosh's arrangement of timber-lined voids and ducts contrived to spread the flames. Nonetheless, almost all of the building was saved, and a £35m restoration commenced. Weeks before its completion in 2018, the building was gutted by a second fire.
Historical Context and Precedents
If the Mac is not to be rebuilt as it was, there are precedents for a strategy of 'curated decay', mixing new and old parts to relate the wider story of the building. Gutted by wartime bombing, Berlin's neoclassical Neues Museum lay in ruins for more than 40 years until an evocative scheme by David Chipperfield transformed its fortunes. The city's Reichstag building, remodelled by Norman Foster, retained graffiti scrawled by victorious Russian soldiers.
Yet the glory of the Mac is the fact that it is all of a piece, from door handles to furniture, stained glass to light fittings, all minutely considered by Mackintosh as an exemplary Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Its double destruction has been a disaster, but its rebirth as a hugely costly phoenix from the flames feels as far away as it ever was.
