Mackintosh Building 'absolutely coming back'

The latest news on the saga of GSA's Mackintosh Building, which broke in a weekend story in The Herald, is great news for preservationists and fans of the building completed in 1909. The building was subject to two fires in four years: one in 2014 that "bruised and battered" the building but did not destroy it, and a larger one in June of this year, which destroyed the restoration work from the previous inferno and cast strong doubt on the building's future.

In The Herald piece, GSA board chair Muriel Gray states, "It is absolutely coming back," thanks to a well-archived design. Original plans still exist, while the 2014 restoration work by Page\Park resulted in a digital BIM model of the school. Gray even boasted, "[with] the forensic detail we have on the building, we could practically 3D print it."

Funding for the rebuilding, estimated at around £100m, would come from insurance money and private donations. Though too early to say with certainty, construction would take between four to seven years. With the building's recent history of fires, the rebuilding would be, in Gray's words, "absolutely fool-proof, gorgeous and safe."