An announcement on Wednesday by the Glasgow School of Art’s management is expected to disclose that they do not intend to rebuild Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s art school building after all. Their new plan is to replace it with a soulless block behind partial façades, featuring edited highlights of Scotland’s most important piece of architectural heritage.
The decision of this change of heart to staff, most of whom are away, will be made via live stream, followed by a press release. Whatever reasons the management trotted out, the reason is, of course, lack of money, because they failed to secure a sufficient insurance payout in the aftermath of the second fire, for reasons they have never been honest enough to disclose.
This situation is, of course, entirely the fault of the management making this announcement. The catalogue of failures and lies started even before the first fire in the Mack in 2014. They failed to install sprinklers when their consultants told them to, spending millions on a “visitor experience” instead. They failed to heed warnings about protecting the building in the year before the first fire, did not seal up fire-spreading ventilation shafts, and left the fire protection on the walls removed. They then lied in a public statement about the cause of the fire spread, after changing the wording of the Fire Service report to protect themselves.
After an international appeal to fund the first reconstruction, further issues arose in GSA’s reallocation of charitable donations and in the protection of the building before reconstruction, due to a failure to activate the sprinkler system or upgrade the fire alarm. Then, during the works, the management arranged parties at the building site, stored flammable materials, had offices in the vulnerable building, failed to comply with the Joint Fire Code, and decided late in the project to rip out the working sprinkler system they had previously installed. And GSA thought a single guard would be a substitute for actually installing fire protection in a building that had already gone on fire.
After the second fire, senior members of GSA staff started to disappear, and it was later found that nearly a million pounds had been paid to former employees to keep quiet. A culture of bullying developed in the school, and staff were told never to discuss the second fire, not even with their families. These activities harmed staff. A parliamentary committee criticised the GSA management for failing to prioritise the building’s protection.
Now, eight years on, during which time Notre Dame in Paris has had all its fire damage faithfully rebuilt, we have had promises from the management and the board, yet no progress here, with the loss of the Mack damaging the physical environment and the cultural identity of Glasgow. And now, in the most cowardly way, the same board and management are to declare that the Mack will not be saved at all. Of course they won’t mention under-insurance or failure to comply with the policy terms. They will spin it, and they will lie.
We need to fight this. Why should they even be allowed to make this decision? I have been saying since 2018 that the Mack should be taken out of the hands of the art school board and management.
If the Mack is not rebuilt as imagined, it loses all its integrity, and we do nothing more than create a monument celebrating the incompetence of its temporary custodians that led to its demise. If we lose this building now, we will lose a large part of what represents Glasgow’s civic footprint and Scotland’s national identity. Future generations will be unforgiving, and rightly so –
Words Clare Henry © Artlyst 2026
Top Photo Wikimedia Commons The front (north) facade of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art on Renfrew Street, Garnethill in Glasgow, Scotland By John a s