Even as flames poured from the roof of the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) on the night of June 15 and before the damage could be fully assessed, passionate debate on the building’s future began. Online and in the morning’s newspapers, architects began to advocate for different approaches to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterwork, built 1897–1909, which was nearing the end of a $45 million restoration following a smaller fire in 2014.
Prominent Scottish architect Alan Dunlop suggested that the destruction appeared so comprehensive that any reconstruction would produce a “sad replica” and that an ambitious new building would make a better legacy. GSA professor Ray McKenzie offered another radical proposal: leave the ruin to stand “as a silent witness to the value—and the precariousness—of history itself.”
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