Art school boss has ‘no regrets’ on safety plan
● Chief defends decision making ● Mack will be rebuilt as original
Glasgow School of Art bosses have said they have no regrets about safety decisions taken on the Mackintosh building – despite fire risks being highlighted over a decade before the venue burned down for a second time.
The building was engulfed in a second major fire in four years in June, shortly before it had been due to reopen after a £49 million rebuild following the first blaze in 2014.
Muriel Gray, chair of the board of governors for the GSA, told MSPS on the culture committee the school took full responsibility for the fire, but doubted whether decision making could have been improved.
She said: “We keep asking ourselves ‘could we have done this better? Is there something we missed? Is there a lesson that we’ve learned that we can take forward?’ So we are very
0 Muriel Gray says she doubts whether decision making could have been improved
self critical and continue to do so.
“I don’t have any regrets about the process.
“I have massive regrets that these things happened, but no, I can’t in all consciousness say
there’s something that I would have done differently.”
GSA’S deputy director of innovation Prof Irene Mcaramcwilliam told the committee she agreed with the assessment that safety concerns had
been addressed sufficiently before the second fire.
MSPS raised concerns that a number of preventative measures were not effectively implemented.
Committee convener Joan Mcalpine referenced a federal report into fire safety at the GSA, published in 2006, which highlighted six areas that were deemed to present either a medium or high risk.
Among these were the likelihood of a fire occurring in the building, as well as any blaze remaining undetected or spreading beyond the area and the consequences in the event of the fire spreading.
Businesses were forced to close and residents were not allowed to access their homes following the incident in June.
Several affected people were in attendance at the committee hearing.
Ms Gray also confirmed plans for the art school to be rebuilt exactly as it was designed 100 years ago.
She said: “Our intention is to bring it back exactly as [Charles Rennie Mackintosh] designed it.
“That will be unique because over the years, there’s been all kinds of bits and pieces done to the Mackintosh that have rendered it not in its original state.
“But now we know exactly how he designed it, what a thrill for the people involved in that, and again the community, to do that from scratch.
“So that’s rather exciting. We are envisaging an absolute Mackintosh building as he designed it.”