The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) has appointed Reiach and Hall with Purcell to ‘robustly test’ its existing rebuild plans to restore the fire-ravaged Mackintosh building

The two practices will be asked to ‘identify the appropriate route to delivery of the faithful reinstatement’ of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed 1909 landmark, which was extensively damaged by a major fire in 2018. At the time, it was nearing the end of a £35 million restoration following a previous fire in 2014.

The appointment forms part of the GSA’s new phased plan for the building’s rebuild, having scrapped an earlier procurement process to find a design team to lead the entire reconstruction.

Reiach and Hall with Purcell will essentially go back to an earlier brief testing and direction-setting stage, working to update the existing 2021 strategic outline business case (SOBC).

According to the school, this SOBC addendum, which is due to be published early next year, ‘will ensure the GSA can make evidenced-based decisions, ensuring the Mackintosh Building is successfully rebuilt as a working school of art and contributes to the regeneration of Sauchiehall Street and Glasgow City Centre’.

The architects will start work immediately, alongside cost and economic consultants, to ‘robustly test the GSA’s previous assumptions, costs and economic impact, timelines and approaches to delivery of this significant project’.

A procurement process for detailed design work and delivery will be launched at a later date, once the work has been concluded. However, any future restoration will likely be delivered in phases – and not by the original 2030 deadline for completion. The £62 million price tag is also expected to rise.

In May, the famous school confirmed that work to date on the stabilisation and rebuild work, totalling around £18 million, has been paid for by interim payments from the insurers.

Stabilisation works were completed last year and a fire-retardant wrapping has been covering the building since last summer to allow the structure to dry out. This means work is unlikely to begin before 2025-26.

The GSA has also said it is embroiled in a row with its insurers – a spat that had gone to arbitration (see statement below). The school did not give a further update on the claim’s progress.

The Mackintosh Building was the historic home of the school, which now has 2,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students studying art, design and architecture.

Few original features remain following the 2018 fire, although much of the façade is intact and stabilised after the removal of 5,500 tonnes of debris.

After a ‘complex and resource-intensive investigation’, which took the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service more than three and a half years to complete, firefighters admitted they still didn’t know how the fire started.

In October 2021, the school ruled out constructing a new building to replace the fire-ravaged structure and instead opted for a ‘faithful reinstatement’ of the 1909 architectural masterpiece.

Architects Journal by Richard Waite

Glasgow School of Art statement on insurance situation (May 2024)
[We] have chosen to enter into arbitration proceedings with [our] insurers. Since June 2018, the Glasgow School of Art has been working through the very complex insurance claim, supported by a team of external legal and insurance professionals.

Following publication of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Fire Investigation Report in January 2022, insurers requested further information which the Glasgow School of Art provided to enable them to confirm policy cover.

In the absence of this confirmation, The Glasgow School of Art has chosen to initiate arbitration.

The arbitration process is subject to a confidentiality provision which means that we are not able to disclose any further details.

Work to date, totalling around £18 million, has been funded by interim payments from the insurers.