On Friday I was devastated by news coming in from Glasgow. The wonderful Glasgow School of Art building by Charles Rennie Mackintosh was on fire. And it looked really bad on photos and films spread through social media with high flames from the roof and lots of smoke coming from the broken windows. Students were preparing for their final exhibitions, and fortunately no one was injured. But the building, its collections and particularly the wonderful library was in severe danger. I felt grief... Can you really mourn a building? I really battled with this question during the evening while my heart was aching...

I wrote my doctoral thesis on the interior design of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald (finished 2003). During that project I had the fortune to work in the Mackintosh archive at the GSA, located in the library. It contained letters, reports from international exhibitions, documentation from local exhibitions, photos and unique, wonderful small water-colour paintings from both Mackintosh and Macdonald and their fellow students. Many tourists walking the guided tours tried to get a glance of the paintings I studied, asking me questions. The library itself was a architectural gem with the interior design and most of the furniture intact. On photos it might look dark and gloomy, but with floor to (over) ceiling windows it flooded with light. The small inserts of color glimmering on the dark pillars of wood created an impression of you being in a forrest — or perhaps more according to its size, in a grove. 

According to the latest news most of the collections and the archives seems to have been saved, together with most of the students works (see: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/24/glasgow-school-of-art-fire-uk-government-help-pay-repairs). The building is not completely damaged, but the library is lost. Already plans are being made for the GSA-building to be renovated and the library reconstructed. There is some hope, but still ... can you really feel sad over a building? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: A building can represent a place of experiences, knowledge and aesthetics — if it is destroyed these immaterial values might also get lost. Photographs is a way to remember, but to actually visit and physically move around and use a building is a much more intense, unique and valuable experience.