A Black day for Glasgow
Posted by: rodwsmith on 23 May 2014
I shed a tear over the awful news of today's fire at Glasgow School of Art, still burning as I write. Mercifully no-one was injured (physically anyway) which is a surprise given how quickly the fire took hold.
I studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, and made many visits to Glasgow during that time. There was just something about that building, its beauty, its perfection at fitting its purpose, its construction and symbolism.
I hope and expect that others feel the same to enough of a degree for its complete restoration, although all the exquisite internal woodwork will have been lost forever.
More than any cathedral or town hall, the School of Art was Glasgow's living heart. This causes me as much pain as the loss of any building could, and I feel for those Glaswegians for whom it is so much more raw.
We must also feel for the poor students who were - I understand - in the throes of hanging their degree shows in the building, even today. Everything they have spent the last four (or arguably 20) years working towards lost in an afternoon. I remember hanging my degree show, about now some 24 years ago, and to lose it all would have destroyed me. But even those people will still probably lament the loss of the building even more.
A great tragedy for Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, and art.