Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art on fire!

A major blaze has broken out at the A-listed Glasgow School of Art - one of Scotland's most iconic buildings. Fire crews are battling to save Glasgow School of Art from a fire that is engulfing the building.

Glasgow School of Art fire. Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art.

Eyewitnesses said the fire appeared to have started when a projector exploded in the basement of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh building just before 12:30.

Twitter users in the Scottish city are posting images showing plumes of black smoke billowing from the building, which was built between 1899 and 1909. Flames can be seen engulfing windows on the top floor of the school.

"The smoke from the fire at Glasgow School of Art is visible from seven miles away," wrote @idea15webdesign. "This is awful". Sunday Times architecture critic Hugh Pearman tweeted: "This can't happen. We can't lose Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art. It's unthinkable."

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a 28-year-old junior draughtsman at a Glasgow architecture firm when he drew up the designs for the building that many consider his masterpiece.

The first half of the Glasgow School of Art building was completed in 1899. But the dramatic art nouveau design of the building in the Garnethill area of the city centre took another 12 years to be completed, finally opening in 1909. It heralded the birth of a new style in 20th Century European architecture.

It is now considered one of Scotland's most admired and influential buildings and Mackintosh, under-appreciated in his own time, is lauded as one of the country's finest designers.

Update 5.30pm, Friday 23 May:

Glasgow School of Art fire update

In a statement published on the Glasgow School of Art press site, Muriel Gray, chair of the board of trustees of the Glasgow School of Art, said: "today is a really black one for the GSA, but I cannot thank the fire brigade enough for the speed with which they came and their commitment to contain and extinguish the fire. Fortunately there have been no fatalities or injuries."

"I am so proud of the staff and students and how everyone has pulled together. We are thankful to all the Glaswegians who turned up to comfort students and to friends from across the world for their messages of support."

The fire is thought to have been started by an exploding projector that set light to expandable foam used in an art installation.

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Dramatic helicopter shot of Glasgow School of Art fire today. http://www.heraldscotland.com

After the fire. Image added on 24/05/2014.

Interior view before fire. Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art.

Library. Interior view before fire. Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art.

Gallery. Interior view before fire. Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art.

Access. Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art.

A firefighter tackles the fire at the Charles Rennie Mackintosh building housing the Glasgow School of Art in May. Photograph @ David Barz

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Charles Rennie MACKINTOSH

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an architect, designer and Scottish watercolorist, which had fundamental importance in the Arts and Crafts movement and was also the leading exponent of Art Nouveau in Scotland. He was the father of Elizabeth Nicol Rennie also followed in his footsteps.

Protomodernist (forerunner of modernism). Tries to reform breaking with the above. He rose to fame after exposing your furniture in the Secession in Vienna in 1900 and was part of the group "The Four" of Glasgow, created in 1897, its main figure.

He took elements of Arts and Crafts, and was very well accepted by the Belgian Art Nouveau opposition (he was a hero to the Secession).

It was one of the most prominent architects of characters linked to Art Nouveau (including Victor Horta), but after 1913 did not receive more orders.

In 1884 he was apprenticed in the studio of architect John Hutchinson, where you would be forming for five years. At the same time, he attended night classes in drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art, acquiring great skill in drawing and design as well as a watercolorist. This was a period of hard work but at the same time, rewarded with several awards. It would be in the evening classes where he met the people who later formed The Four group (Four), the sisters Frances Macdonald and Margaret Macdonald, who would later marry, and Herbert MacNair, colleague working at studio Honeyman & Keppie, where come to work in 1889 and remained until 1913. in 1890, the granting of travel grant Alexander-Thomson, which won the design of a public building of classic Greek style allowed him to go in 1891 France, Italy and Belgium for three months. In 1896, his project won the competition for the Glasgow School of Art (1896-1909), his masterpiece.

In collaboration with his wife, he furnished from 1896 several tearooms in Glasgow; also he received orders from England and abroad for villas and homes; including one for a music room for Fritz Waerndorfer.

The Four group also participated in the VIII exhibition of the Viennese Secession 1900.

In 1915 the marriage Mackintosh moved to London, where he remained until the end of his life, except for the years 1923 to 1927, during which he lived in Port-Vendres (France), where he devoted himself to painting (watercolors).

Mackintosh in London devoted to graphic works and book arts.

Published on: May 23, 2014

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