On Friday night, in a hard city never knowingly defeated, optimism had fled. The Glasgow School of Art, the working testament to the genius of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was engulfed in flames once more four years after a devastating fire had threatened the fabled Mac building. Its £35m re-birth following years of meticulous craftsmanship was only months away; the scaffolding which had been its temporary sarcophagus was being dismantled. Now fire service chiefs are preparing Glasgow for the worst.
Four years ago the over-riding emotion was one of grief. Mackintosh’s building, sitting at the top of one of Glasgow’s many elevated boulevards, was a source of fierce pride that carried well beyond the artists and teachers who called it home. If any stonework could ever be described as delicate it was Mackintosh’s in this building. Perhaps an awareness of this fragility lay near the root of Glaswegians’ curious love for this building. Once you had seen it you felt you shared in a communal duty of care towards it. Even those who had never set foot in it – nor are ever likely to – knew about this place and knew it needed to be protected.
The sense of loss and sadness that was apparent in May 2014 was assuaged by waves of sympathy from all over the world. This perhaps shielded the school’s custodians from difficult questions over a sprinkler system that wasn’t operational and the presence of flammable art installations amid the wood-panelled beauty of the building. Such questions were never properly answered.
This time a palpable sense of anger is beginning to form as Glasgow braces itself for the news that its most cherished building is now beyond repair. How could this happen again and why was it engulfed so rapidly?
The alarm was raised by a passing policeman at 11.15 on Friday night. Why then was there no security? What was the status of the fire-proofing on a building still recovering from widespread third-degree burns?
From the vantage point of a rooftop car park a few blocks away, the charred roof timbers were still giving off steam in a curtain of Clydeside rain. They told their own story and hinted at mortal damage. In the streets below little groups of people, still unable to comprehend what they were seeing, formed behind the police tapes. Among them were the art students who had studied there these last few years.
A few hours before the students had been celebrating after their graduation ceremony. Among them was Beth Cowey. “We were in the city centre not far away from the art school and when the first news of the fire began to circulate I simply refused to believe them,” she said. “It’s difficult to comprehend and to convey how much this place means to those of us who were lucky enough to have been there and to have seen it in its original glory before the first fire.”
Four years ago the painter Alison Watt, one of Glasgow School of Art’s most renowned alumni, wrote about her love for this place in the Observer. “It was a building in which we were encouraged to think about the world and our place in it. We graffitied its walls, dressed up its plaster casts, hung from its balconies and clambered on to its roof but, most importantly, we worked there,” she wrote. “And long before it was seen as a museum or a place of reverence, the brilliance of Mackintosh’s design encouraged us to work hard. His idea of the Glasgow School of Art, and ours, lives on.”
On Friday night she could scarcely believe that her beloved building had been grievously damaged once more. “This building lived and breathed its purpose,” she said. “Now, like many others, I want to know how this could happen again.”
This time too Glasgow wants some answers to questions never adequately addressed after the last fire.