Glasgow School of Art Deems Renovating Mackintosh Building Financially Unsustainable
5July 23, 2026
Eight years after theGlasgow School of Art’s historic Mackintosh Building was devastated by ahuge fire, the school’s Board have Governors have cast doubt on plans for its reconstruction. In a press release, the Board said that the school cannot assume the financial responsibility of rebuilding the Mackintosh on its own because of construction inflation and economic pressures; the projected building cost is approximately £265 million.
This sum, according to the school, is “equivalent to five times the GSA’s annual turnover, an amount that is not affordable and which would compromise the financial sustainability of the institution.”
The Glasgow School of Art said that its immediate plan is to remove the leased external scaffolding that has been in place on the building since the 2018 fire. This will be done to improve the appearance and visibility of the structure.
“We very much want to see this exceptional and globally important building rebuilt, but we cannot put the financial sustainability of the GSA at risk in doing so,” Ann Priest, the Chair of the Board of Governors of The Glasgow School of Art, said in a statement. “However, we believe that the Mackintosh Building—loved and cared for by so many people connected to the school, both in the past and since 2018—can have a new purpose and become a catalyst for innovation, regeneration and economic growth in and around Glasgow.”
Third-party intervention is still possible. Màiri McAllan, the Scottish education and culture minister, said in a statement that the government would “work closely with [the Glasgow School of art] and other partners to help secure a prosperous future for this iconic building.”
Tragically, the 2018 fire that decimated the Mackintosh came four years after yet another fire, a smaller one, that engulfed the building’s west wing and library and destroyed almost all of the oil paintings in the school’s collection. The Mackintosh, which was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and completed in 1909, had just managed to mostly be restored by the time the 2018 fire devastated the institution once again.