Glasgow, Scotland–based architecture practice Page/Park wowed judges in an international competition for the restoration of the Glasgow School of Art, whose legendary art nouveau library was consumed by a fire in May last year.
While all 259 rooms were affected by the fire, with the bulk of the damage attributed to smoke, the flames demolished Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s library beyond recognition. Page/Park’s Piece by Piece submission comprised a room-by-room dissection of the building, a culmination of closely studying photographs and literature “from various periods and from every possible angle” to visually reassemble the library in its heyday.
From there, 21st-century amenities can be integrated such as replacements for the vintage lighting and cabling—first installed when the building was completed in 1909. “The first job is to understand how it was originally constructed and secondly to understand the how it was changed over the last century, and on the basis of that if we know how it’s made we can make the decision how it’s going to be renewed if necessary or repaired for the most part,” David Page, head of architecture at Page/Parks, told The Guardian.
Having worked on a number of Mackintosh-conceived projects, including converting the former Glasgow Herald offices into the Lighthouse Centre for Design and Architecture, the firm showed superlative insight into the Scottish architect’s oeuvre. In crafting its proposal, Page/Parks zeroed in on a single bay and post of the balcony—two elements repeated throughout the building—to recreate the library within the remains of its still-standing masonry shell.
“Our knowledge has been supplemented by what was revealed by the fire—elements of the construction that were not possible to examine in full when the Library was intact,” the firm writes in Piece by Piece.
Profiled rails, balcony pendants and scalloped balusters painted red, white, blue and green inform the interior’s art nouveau signature, but the proposal does not elaborate on whether these archaic fixtures will stay or go. Work is slated to commence in April next year, with the renovation being expected to conclude in 2018.
