Currently there is a planning application pending with Glasgow City Council for the demolition of an existing building on Sauchiehall Street and the erection of student housing development with ground floor commercial and associated works.
This proposed development is totally inappropriate and as you can see from the artists impression would drastically affect Mackintosh’s Masterpiece at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), as it will block the view of GSA from Sauchiehall St and Dalhousie St, and will reduce the daylight from south-facing studios and affect views from the Hen Run and the west stairwell.
As a creative genius, Mackintosh is widely acknowledged as being among the most important world class architects of the time, including Louis Sullivan, Antoni Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Victor Horta. The Glasgow School of Art is regarded as Mackintosh’s architectural masterpiece and in 2009 the Mackintosh Building at the School of Art was voted the best British-designed building of the past 175 years in an RIBA poll.
Sauchiehall Street is in need of regeneration, but an unsympathetic development like this would be detrimental for any future plans for World Heritage.
Here is the link to the proposed planning application on the south side of the GSA.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh has tremendous appeal and remains an iconic figure across the UK and overseas and, for many people, he is a figure synonymous with Glasgow. His legacy of work clearly contributes to a much wider social and economic role in Glasgow and across Scotland as whole and for these reasons this proposed plan must not happen. Please feel to forward this news item to other relevant people.
Comments and objections need to be posted by Friday 16 September.
To make a comment you have to register first and then you get an email with a link to verify and login. Then click again on the link below this email and you’ll be back on the page and logged in. Then you can leave a comment of up to 2000 characters.