Glasgow's iconic 'Mack'…
Thanks to a 'mammoth' campaign, writes Clare Henry, signs are at last beginning to appear that the task of restoring Glasgow's iconic Glasgow School of Art is finally being taken seriously
THE fast growing campaign to get Glasgow School of Art's world famous Mackintosh Building (The Mack) rebuilt, is at last starting to have results. Now the ball is rolling the sense of tragic loss is tinged with some optimistic rumblings - a feeling of hope for a future rebuild.
Hope is in the air – but!!
That's following a mammoth campaign plus petitions to Rebuild the Mack organised by many, with support coming from key organisations. The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) jointly called for a "National response" involving both UK and Scottish governments to ensure GSA is faithfully reinstated. The Mackintosh Society, National Trust, Victorian Society, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Times, Financial Times, Scotsman, Sunday Post and others are calling, clamouring, crying, for some Westminster, Edinburgh and international involvement.
Twelve years gone by and no action. Why? When, in five short years, Paris has rebuilt Notre Dame so perfectly and fast.
Now I hope Lisa Nandy, MP Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, and Ruth Mackenzie, Minister for the Arts, will speak up, turn up the pressure. Mackenzie was director of Scottish Opera in 1998, so knows the Mack and Glasgow well.
The future requires cction on four fronts.
1 – Involve national governments with the appropriate clout, support and political will.
2 – Put the Mack in a new separate independent Trust composed of architectural, building and financial experts, with no commitment to return it to GSA.
3. – Replace the current GSA board.
4. – Attract philanthropists world wide.
Eight years after the inferno of the second fire, which made the original 2014 fire look mild, Scottish Government has pledged to kickstart efforts to rebuild the Mack, after the GSA board admitted it couldn't afford to pay for it. Scottish Culture secretary Mairi McAllan pledged to get potential funding partners 'around the table' 'as soon as possible' to form a new 'collaboration' to pursue the project.
She said: "The Mackintosh building is of the most enormous cultural significance to Glasgow, Scotland and around the world. My clear preference is for the Mack to be faithfully reinstated. I have met with Glasgow School of Art to discuss their vision for the future of the Macintosh building, and while no request for public funding has been made, I was clear that we will work with them and other partners to help secure a prosperous future for this iconic building."
Mairi McAllan's words are a hopeful sign of progress, but vague and lacking any detail. After 12 years, rapid action, not platitudes, are required. Pressure is needed to push for what a new 'collaboration' actually means and looks like, and to ensure this is not empty rhetoric but a step forward towards a faithful restoration of this iconic fire ravaged building.
However this current proposal from McAllan leaves the Mack building in GSA's ownership. A mistake. As the Mackintosh Society has said, "GSA no longer has the credibility to spearhead a world-class reconstruction project."
The GSA board must quietly step aside or, if unwilling, be removed from the equation, as over the last 12 years the trustees have proved to be negligent, obstructive, obsessively secretive and untrustworthy.
They are seemingly incapable of recognising the scale of their failure. The institution no longer possesses the currency of trust required to attract sufficient funding. This goes to the heart of the matter. Trust has not simply evaporated; it has been squandered through catastrophic institutional arrogance and a sustained refusal to accept meaningful accountability.
There will be no forward motion until an independent trust has been established. Until then fund raising would be impossible. Only an independent trust with specialist architectural expertise, transparency and independent capability, would build confidence around public-private-philanthropic funding.
Establishing the world famous Mack as an independent trust has been talked about since 1984 under beloved GSA director Tony Jones, reiterated by architect Gordon Gibb in 2018 and echoed constantly by many others, including me.
Surely national pride is also involved? Failing to show firm and steely resolve for Mackintosh's masterpiece would represent a profound lack of national pride and shameful neglect by leadership. Already many Glaswegians are ashamed that, in 12 years, their city has done nothing. The whole tragic situation has seriously harmed Scotland's reputation worldwide.
Now there is a fragile chance. With Glasgow's Lord Provost and more politicians on side, with more behind the scenes pressure, at long last there's hope!
We now need leadership from UK governments to harness the resources needed to ensure the faithful reinstatement of the Mackintosh building.
