
On June 15, a catastrophic fire engulfed Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, spurring an important debate about the landmark’s future. Back in 2014, another fire had ruined the famous library and other interiors, but left the structure “90 percent viable,” according to local authorities. This time the destruction is all but total, leaving the building a smoldering shell of dubious structural viability.
Formal assessment still needs to be conducted, but The Guardian reports that a consensus to rebuild is emerging among city officials, Scotland’s conservation agency, and the school. It hopefully goes without saying that Mackintosh’s masterpiece should be restored, or even re-created if need be. Less self-evident is how closely the effort should hew to the original. Preservationists have been arguing about that since the dawn of the movement.
Germany, Poland, and Russia, faced with profound losses of architectural heritage after World War II, have pursued wholesale reconstruction as a matter of national pride, as in the heavily restored Romanov palaces outside St. Petersburg and the ground-up re-creation of central Warsaw. The approach may irk someone who puts a premium on authenticity, but I find it hard not to appreciate ensembles rebuilt from nothing like Schloss Herrenhausen in Hannover—if only for the spectacular general effect.
More in line with contemporary taste is the “honest” approach pioneered in the early 19th century by Italian architect Giuseppe Valadier; he replaced missing Pentelic marble finishes on the Arch of Titus in Rome with congruent carvings in travertine, subtly distinguishing old from new through the difference in material while remaining formally faithful to the ancient ideal.

Architect Hans Döllgast brought the idea into the modern age with his 1950s reconstruction of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where he used salvaged brick and streamlined details to fill in gaps in Leo von Klenze’s war-damaged classical façade. David Chipperfield and Julian Harrap did likewise in their refitting of Berlin’s 19th century Neues Museum, which had remained shuttered since 1945.
Determining the suitability and scope of any preservation effort naturally depends not only upon how much historic fabric remains, but also upon how detailed the records are of the original design. Thousands of photographs and recovered fragments helped guide the work at the Russian palaces, whereas the Governor’s Palace and Capitol at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia were rebuilt in the 1930s largely on the basis of an 18th century engraving.

Faced with similarly limited evidence, Venturi and Rauch took a different, conceptual approach to the 1976 Franklin Court complex in Philadelphia, simply sketching the outline of Benjamin Franklin’s long-lost house and print shop in white-painted, square-tube steel. Artist David Hammons is taking a similar tack with his recently approved re-creation of Pier 52 in New York.
Rebuilding the Glasgow School of Art as a skeletal steel frame would somehow miss the point. Stabilizing the historic masonry shell and taking a more contemporary approach within, like the Neues Museum, would get closer to the mark. But in this case, why not go all the way?
Computer documentation and fabrication hold the promise for a whole new level of accuracy, exemplified by the Institute for Digital Archaeology’s efforts with Palmyra, the ancient city in Syria ravaged by ISIS. Fortunately, as University of Edinburgh professor of architectural conservation Miles Glendinning told The Guardian, a detailed 3D model of the school had been created after the previous fire, making reconstruction eminently feasible. No, it won’t be the same, but it’ll be better than nothing at all.