‘This devastated masterpiece must be Scotland’s Notre Dame’

Artist Lachlan Goudie on why gutted but still iconic building demands more urgent action

Scotland should treat the rebuilding of Glasgow’s gutted School of Art with the same urgency as France when it rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral, according to one of the country’s leading artists.

The £800 million, five-year rebuild of the iconic church in Paris is due to be finished in 2024, to coincide with the arrival of the Olympics, but, in Glasgow, the future of the famous art school, the masterwork of world-renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, is less certain.

Now, artist Lachlan Goudie has demanded immediate action to rebuild the school after two devastating fires at the A-listed building and said if the school’s management cannot lead the project, it should be taken over by heritage bodies guided by ministers.

Goudie said: “Whatever the permutations and machinations of the management there, big questions should be asked as to why, on a national level, governmental attention is not being expressed more loudly as to why this is not a project like Notre Dame in Paris? Why it’s not being made a national

commitment to support, encourage, scrutinise and rebuild the identity of Glasgow as a city but more widely the association of Scotland with one of the greatest architects who ever lived?

“The memory of that building is fading, and students are going to Glasgow School of Art without realising how vital it was to previous generations. If you mess around with a legacy like that, we will be so much the poorer for forgetting the importance of it and in defining who we are as a nation.

Architects were invited to bid for the contract to lead the £62m “faithful reinstatement” of the Glasgow art school in April, almost four years after the second blaze at the building destroyed it as the rebuild ordered after the first fire in 2014 was nearing completion.

The management was criticised for its stewardship of the famous building while it was also accused of launching a misleading global fundraising campaign in the wake of the fire despite insurance being in place to pay for the rebuild.

Goudie, a celebrated painter, art historian and broadcaster, fears the work to rebuild is too slow and lacks any urgency, adding: “It seems to be bogged down in apathy and carelessness. We’ve all heard how the school has been