28 Jul 2014

First in to see Mackintosh's damaged masterpiece, Glasgow School of Art

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It was one of the most beautiful and brilliant buildings built in the last 200 years in Britain.

Even in 2007, in an RIBA survey, the Glasgow School of Art was voted by the general public as the best building in Britain.

I and my team have been granted exclusive access to the burnt-out ruins of the iconic Rennie Mackintosh library and across the rest of the building.

The amazing thing is that beyond water damage, half the building has survived intact. And so you see the wonderful north light studios, with their graceful scale and simplicity.

Read more: After the fire: Glasgow School of Art – in pictures

But it’s when you get to the complexity surrounding the library that the true scale of the disaster dawns on you.

It was there that a human chain of 100 firemen fought brilliantly to prevent the fire going any further. But they were unable to save the library.

Yet directly underneath is the celebrated Mackintosh lecture theatre – and that survives completely intact.

It’s going to cost £25m to put the place back together again, the bulk of that in restoring the library, for which they have all the working drawings – they were stored in a fire-proof vault underneath the building.

There’s something strange about mourning the loss of one great building, having just returned from Gaza, where so many have lost their lives, their buildings and their society.

And yet part of my British soul is informed by Rennie Mackintosh’s work. I’ve known about it since my architect brother first showed it to me as a student.

The full fire report is not yet out, and many are still shocked that this could have happened to one of Britain’s most extraordinary buildings.

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