Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art has survived a tragic recent fire and remains ‘a truly functional work of art’, writes Jonathan Glancey.
Mackintosh is to Glasgow as Gaudí is to Barcelona. From the city’s airport and central railway station to local newsagents and souvenir stalls, it is impossible not to be aware of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928), the Glaswegian-born architect and artist who died in obscure poverty and yet for decades has been recognised as one of the world’s finest architects.
Although celebrated today for the artistic houses he designed along with every last detail of their interiors, for his distinctive furniture and superb watercolours – flowers and landscapes painted on the Suffolk and French Mediterranean coasts after he abandoned architecture at the time of World War One – his masterpiece is undoubtedly the Glasgow School of Art, one of the great buildings of all time.
Mackintosh is to Glasgow as Gaudí is to Barcelona (Credit: GL Archive / Alamy)Heartbreakingly, the art school, built in two stages between 1897 and 1909, went up in flames on 23 May 2014 just weeks before an up-to-date sprinkler system was to have been installed. The event made news headlines around the world. None of the students or staff was injured, but the building and its contents were badly damaged as flames licked from a basement studio, where students had been preparing a degree show, up the west side of the school and across its roof.
The spellbinding library at the Glasgow School of Art (Credit: Arcaid Images / Alamy)The local fire service, well aware of what the building and Mackintosh mean to Glasgow, and to the wider world, did a fine job in containing the blaze and minimising damage. And, yet, of all the rooms worst affected by the fire it was the spellbinding library that suffered most. A sublime essay in the play of light and shade, of natural and artificial light, of haunting architectural volume and engaging detail, this numinous space, which has enchanted art historians, visitors and students for more than a century, had gone up in smoke. A mercurial and tragic figure, Mackintosh’s luck appeared to have run out again.
Fine art factory
Since the fire, students have been moved to other buildings in the city, while a shortlist of architects has been drawn up, one of which will lead a team to rebuild a school of art that is itself a work of art for creating art. An architectural masterpiece hard to pin down and categorise in terms of style, Glasgow School of Art is far from being pickled in heritage aspic. It has happily accommodated art students for more than a century, and has been scuffed and worn in ways that make it all the more endearing: here is a revered and listed historic building that is truly a functional work of art.
The library, one of the world's finest examples of Art Nouveau, was destroyed by the fire (Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)A £20m ($29.5m) Mackintosh fund set up to finance the restoration has attracted a glamorous list of trustees, among them the Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, a long-standing architectural enthusiast, and Peter Capaldi, a Glasgow-born graduate of the art school who plays the 12th and current incarnation of the Doctor on Doctor Who. Restoration costs will inevitably be high as the school was built in solid materials and beautifully realised in an era of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau design when God, the devil and an entire chorus of angels were in the details. Nothing was too good for this art school and yet it was not an expensive building. It was built in two stages because finances were stretched, but what it had that was impossible to value was the sheer talent of its young architect.
The Glasgow School of Art is one of the great buildings of all time (Credit: Iain Masterton / Alamy)
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