‘An old friend nearing the end’: personal tributes
Students and academics, lovers of the arts, admiring tourists or simply proud Glasgow folk – the School of Art is so important for so many. Here we take a snapshot of just how much the building means – and just how terrible its loss would be. Sunday Herald writer David Pratt leads the tributes ‘M OST people like myself who have been lucky enough to draw or paint in its light-filled studios, read in the cosiness of its magnificent art nouveau library or sit through lectures on those buttock-breaking mahogany benches of the Mackintosh theatre, would say the same. Glasgow School of Art is a life-changing kind of place.
I spent the best part of a decade there, first as a student and then as a lecturer. On Friday, for the second time in four years, I watched the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed building burn. On hearing that it was on fire, I felt a compulsion to be there, this time with my camera. Once again it was a time to pause and reflect on my own rite of passage through this wonderful institution and the many hard-working and happy hours I spent in the Mack. Like my student peers I had gone to Glasgow School of Art to study visual art, but in this cradle of creativity so many of us found ourselves becoming other things – musicians, playwrights, actors, novelists, poets and in my case a journalist and photographer.
On Friday night as I watched the fire tear through the timber and the recent restoration work go up in a cloud of orange flames, I felt my stomach churn yet again. Like being with an old friend in their death throes, I was torn between a desire to stay with them through to the end or leave to avoid my own hurt.
In the end again, just as in 2014, I decided to stay and capture what I could of this terrible moment with my camera. It seemed the right thing to do given that it was in this very building that I learned to see and render the world in images. How I wish, though, there had never been any need to make those photographs on Friday night. Up until that moment the Mack was phoenix-like, rising from the ashes. It will do so again I’m sure. We must now all play our part in making t hat happen.
Bob Hardy, bass player with Franz Ferdinand, added his thoughts on the fire: “I’m utterly devastated by the news of the Art School fire. It seems completely unreal that this could happen again just as the renovation work from the last fire was starting to be completed.
“Obviously I’m also massively thankful that nobody appears to have been hurt and once again in awe of the job that the fire service have done.
“I hope the indefatigable GSA staff can muster the strength to bounce back once again and know that all alumni, and the whole city, are behind them.” Scottish scriptwriter Paul Laverty, writer of the of the award-winning movie I, Daniel Blake, said: “It’s doubly heartbreaking after all the immense effort made by people to get it up and running again. The community of Glasgow is as tough as nails so people will rise to the occasion again. Glasgow is such a resilient city and there will as always be tremendous goodwill towards the School of Art.”
Singer-songwriter Midge Ure said: “Devastated to hear about the beautiful Glasgow School of Art going through what looks like a much worse fire than last time”. Artist and TV presenter Lachlan Goudie said: “This building was part of Glasgow’s soul, a visual expression of Scottish creativity at its peak. “To see it devastated once was horrendous, to see it assaulted by the flames a second time is gut wrenching.” Comedian and Strictly Come Dancing contestant Susan Calman said:
“Thinking of staff, students, alumni and the wonderful emergency services who, as always, fought to save such a treasure. Just awful.”
Travis singer Fran Healy, who was raised in Glasgow, said: “I cannot believe @GSofA is on fire again. So sad.”
Anne Kenney, a writer and producer of the hit TV show Outlander, said: “So very sorry to hear about the fire at Glasgow School of Art! What a tragedy. Still rebuilding from 2014 fire.”
Stuart Robertson, director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society said: “It is unbelievable that the building can suffer a repeat of the devastating fire that ravaged the building in 2014. My heart goes out to everybody.”
I think back to hours spent drinking cheap red wine and listening to mix tapes in friends’ studios; to the mighty rush of hope and possibility that the building seemed to hold. Today, all those memories lie in ashes BY NORRY WILSON
ALTHOUGH never a student at the GSA – I couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler – the Mackintosh Building has run through my, and my family’s, life since the day the first stone was laid.
My paternal grandfather, Joseph Wilson, while studying to become an architect, watched the building rise. A gold medal student and the studio assistant to the head of architecture, Professor Eugene Bourdon, he probably saw Mackintosh, plans in hand, wandering about Renfrew Street.
Both my grandfather and Bourdon would later serve on the Western Front. My grandpa Joe came back. Bourdon, his friend and mentor, did not.
Some 20 years later, and with another war raging, my mother, Jean Gardner, climbed the hill to the Mackintosh, sharing her time there with a wild generation of young men who had returned to resume their studies following their army service.
By the time I arrived on the scene, in 1966, the Mack was part of the family; a place to attend exhibitions, fashion shows, and play hide and seek. As a wee boy, bored with the grown ups’ conversation, my brother and I would charge through its corridors, hide in its nooks and corners, and scare ourselves silly by walking along darkened passageways lined with spooky, life-sized plaster models of classical statuary.
The men my mother and father would speak to were big, hairy, loud, paint-spattered, and smelled of turps and booze. They were, had I but known it at the time, the art stars of their day; the painters, lecturers and teachers who were busy shaping the way Glasgow looked at the world, and the way the world looked at Glasgow.
I returned to the Art School in my late teens to drink and dance in the Vic Café; to admire friends’ artworks and exhibitions; to smoke endless roll-ups while talking about art and life; and to pursue interesting girls with radical haircuts. I never did catch one …
The place positively vibrated with life and ideas; it was a machine for creativity. It was Glasgow’s “Left Bank”.
Walking up those curved stairs to the Mack’s twin doors, placing your hand on the Mackintosh-designed brass doorplate, pushing your way through, nodding to the jannie in his cubbyhole – here was a Narnia of the imagination, a place to make the impossible possible. Every inch of the building, from exterior to interior, every surface, every corner, every detail was designed and considered, and bore the stamp of Mackintosh.
I think back to the nights spent sitting on the window seats in the top corridor, watching the sun set over Glasgow; to the hours spent drinking cheap wine and listening to mix tapes in friends’ studios; to the mighty rush of hope, possibility and personal metamorphosis that the building seemed to hold.
I walked past the Mack early on Friday evening. Music and laughter was coming from the Vic as a new generation of young artists celebrated their graduation day. Proud students, and even prouder parents, were standing in Renfrew Street, looking up at the ongoing restoration work.
I, like them, couldn’t wait to get back into that building; to once again feel that rush of life and creativity that Mackintosh’s creation inspired.
Today, that dream, and all those memories, lie in ashes. Writer and historian Norry Wilson runs the Lost Glasgow Facebook page, a site dedicated to the documentation, discussion and appreciation of Glasgow, its history, architecture, people and communities. Go to facebook.com/lostglasgowofficial.