The decision to scrap plans for a full re-installation of the Mackintosh Building reflects the crushing financial costs facing the GSA, but could their plans for a new ‘creative district’ in Glasgow save the building?
After the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) Mackintosh Building was ravaged by two fires in the last 12 years, the community held hopes for a reconstruction project that would restore the Building. However, at the end of July, the decision to scrap plans to rebuild was announced, following the settlement of the GSA’s long-running insurance claim. A full re-installation of the building has been projected to cost £265m (equivalent to five times the GSA’s annual turnover) and therefore was ruled out as a possibility by the GSA. Whilst a disappointment to many, the announcement was accompanied by a pledge to invest in a new ‘creative district’. With hopes that this development will add awareness and investment in order to raise funds towards a potential full rebuild. Does this promise do enough to respond to this massive step back for the GSA community or just reflect a more pervasive issue of underfunding which continues to impact Glasgow’s Arts spaces?
It’s been years of boarded up windows and closed doors for the GSA’s Mackintosh Building and what was once the beating heart of the GSA community is now looking increasingly less likely to return anytime soon. Disaster first struck in May 2014 when a fire started the week of the students’ final year degree show. Firefighters worked flat out to extinguish the flames and announced that they had protected 70% of its contents and more than 90% of its structure was viable. However, the Mackintosh library (which was world-famous for its unique art nouveau style) had been destroyed alongside many artworks. After a huge, international campaign led by Brad Pitt and Peter Capaldi (the Dr. Who star who previously studied graphic design at GSA), £20m was raised for the rebuild which began in July 2016. In 2018, a second fire broke out in the building and reconstruction efforts were on hold ever since, whilst the settlement process was being carried out.
Financial pressures on Arts spaces are being felt all over Glasgow. Just down the road from the Mackintosh Building, the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) on Sauchiehall Street was permanently closed earlier this year. After struggling for the last few years, it wasn’t a lack of artistic flair or talent but inconsistent fiscal management that meant its display windows were left to gather dust and cobwebs. Now, it seems that the Mackintosh Building could be condemned to the same fate, with financial barriers simply too big to plan around as Ann Priest, Chair of the Board of Governors of the GSA said, “We very much want to see this exceptional and globally important building rebuilt, but we cannot put the financial sustainability of the GSA at risk in doing so.”
However, it’s not necessarily all doom and gloom for the future of the GSA and the Mackintosh Building. The announcement also put forward the idea that the GSA could emerge as part of a ‘creative district’, formalising the collection of organisations in the city such as the Scottish Opera, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Theatre of Scotland. For Priest, the Mackintosh Building is only part of the proposed “heritage-led economic regeneration project, building on the existing creative and cultural production assets within this part of the city”, and the creative project of institutions would allow the GSA to remain at the heart of the community, without the Mackintosh building’s physical reinstatement.
The question is, can these other creative institutions prop-up and support the GSA as it attempts to put the pieces back together? As financial backing falls short, the Board is calling on the community to come together and support all Creative Arts, in its first new steps towards saving the Mackintosh Building.
