The Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, completed in 1909 and 1910, is Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s largest and best-known work. Today it stands as a gutted shell, and whether and how it will be rebuilt is still undecided.
Where things stand
The school has said that it cannot pay for a full rebuild by itself, and it has put the cost of putting the building back as it was at about £265 million, several times higher than earlier estimates. It plans to look for outside funding. The next steps are to take down the scaffolding, make the remaining structure safe, and consider the options, which include rebuilding only part of the building. No timetable has been given.
Opinion is divided. Some architects and heritage bodies argue that governments should fund a complete reconstruction, while the school points to the scale of the cost.
How it came to this
- 2014. A fire damaged the building, and a long programme of restoration began.
- 2018. A second fire, far more destructive than the first, broke out when the restoration, valued at about £35 million, was close to completion. A public inquiry in 2022 could not name a definite cause. It found that half of the building was on fire within 38 minutes of the fire service arriving, and judged that the restoration works probably helped the fire to spread more quickly.
Why the building matters for glass
Mackintosh designed the building as a single piece, with its windows, light, furniture and metalwork working together, so it was one of the places where the Glasgow Style could be seen at full scale. Much of the original interior was lost in the fires. That is why the Mackintosh interiors that survive elsewhere, including the Willow Tea Rooms and House for an Art Lover, are now of greater importance.