Glasgow School of Art

About

Glasgow School of Art begins in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design and takes its present name in 1853. Architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, working with Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, designs the Mackintosh Building in two phases between 1896 and 1909 — the first completed in 1899, the second in 1909 — and the building comes to be seen as a pioneering work of the "Modern Style," Britain's variant of Art Nouveau. On 23 May 2014, a serious fire tears through the Mackintosh Building; investigators trace the cause to a canister of expanding foam a student left near a hot projector while preparing for the degree show, and restoration begins in 2016. A second, more destructive fire strikes on 15 June 2018, and a three-year investigation concludes in January 2022 without determining a cause. Following a "faithful reinstatement," the Mackintosh Building is due to reopen as a graduate school in 2030. Since 2005 the school has produced six Turner Prize winners among its graduates — Simon Starling, Richard Wright, Martin Boyce, Duncan Campbell, Charlotte Prodger, and Jasleen Kaur.