‘Everyone’ knew ‘firetrap’ art school was a threat to life prior to first blaze in 2014

● MSPS told that staff were aware it was a ‘risky building’ despite its iconic status

Glasgow School of Art (GSA) was a “firetrap” and “threat to life” over the slipshod approach to fire hazards prior to the blaze which devastated the iconic Charles Rennie Mackintosh building in 2014, MSPS have heard.

There are now calls for control of the rebuild to be removed from bosses at the internationally-renowned school and handed to an independent expert panel after a second fire again ravaged the building in June.

Art school chiefs are to be hauled before Holyrood’s culture committee after it heard yesterday of “systemic failures” in the way risk of fire was managed at the building.

Committee convener Joan Mcalpine warned: “There are wider issues about the conservation and custodianship of Mackintosh’s building and artworks and we believe as a committee it is right that we shine a light on these matters.”

The historic building in GLASSNP gow city centre was destroyed by a blaze in June but had previously been badly damaged by a fire four years ago.

But MSPS heard yesterday lessons havd not been learned from that first blaze.

Eileen Reid, a former head of widening participation at GSA told MSPS yesterday that concern over fire risks at the school had been widespread even before the 2014 blaze.

“We all knew it,” she told the committee.

“We used to talk about how many minutes we would have togetoutbecauseitwassoprecarious given the 100 years of – not abuse – but the way the building was used. Flamma- ble materials and the rest. We knew that was a very risky, hazardous building.

“Of course I’m concerned with the iconic building, but it was a threat to life too.”

Mackintosh expert Roger Billcliffe said art school bosses have revealed “nothing” about the reasons behind the 2014 blaze, other than saying a “spark” caused by a student was accidental.

A report by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service was “redacted” and did not set out the reasons for the blaze.

The 2014 blaze was extinguished within three minutes of the fire service arriving, he said, but had already spread 2 The Mack gutted by fire this year. Above, appearing before MSPS were, clockwise from top left: architect Malcolm Fraser; Charles Rennie Mackintosh scholar Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society director Stuart Robertson and the former head of widening participation at Glasgow School of Art Eileen Reid to the top floor because vents had not been closed off and acted as “chimneys” to help the spread.

“It was a fire trap waiting to happen and the luckiest thing that happened in that fire was that nobody died,” he said.

Architect Malcolm Fraser even accused art school bosses of being more concerned with making money from the Mackintosh legacy than protecting the historic building.

“For me the cause of the first fire was in treating the Mackintosh as an icon to be monetised without taking good care of it, creating an empire around it without taking care of the jewel at the heart,” he said.

MSP Kenneth Gibson questioned whether the GSA board and executive is “fit to manage the reconstruction of the art school and it’s management going forward”,

Stuart Robertson, the director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, said; “I would like to see more sharing of knowledge.

“The school is very much a teaching school and I think a lot of staff members have been doing dual roles. So I think that under a major conservation project it has to be with an expert panel put together to drive that forward.”