Let’s be clear. This is not Grenfell. The word ‘tragedy’ may be all over the news, Twitter may be full of despair, but no architectural loss can compare with the deaths of seventy-two people. Nevertheless, the response to the latest devastating fire at Glasgow School of Art really is visceral and profound, just as it was four years ago when part of the building that included Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s world famous art nouveau library, first burned down.
The Mack, as the old section of the art school is known, is more than a building, more than an institution; it’s one of the cultural threads that runs through Glasgow, or at least through a wide slice of Glaswegian society. The School of Art is not just an art college, but a social hub, a music venue, an exhibition space, a weel-kent building of rare, international merit that all the citizens of the ‘dear green place’ can and do enjoy and take pride in.
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