Row rages over Mackintosh versus 'mere tosh'

A LEADING architecture critic has branded plans for a £50 million building at Glasgow School of Art opposite the famous Mackintosh school as "dumb" and "monotonous".

William Curtis, who gave the keynote centenary lecture at the GSA last year, used the forum of the prestigious Architects Journal to demand "a lot more work" needed to be done on the "still-born" proposals by US architect Steven Holl.

Top Scottish architects and commentators have now also weighed in, voicing serious concerns that the plans show no understanding of Glasgow's weather and light.

Designs for the new building, by Steven Holl Architects of New York with JM Architects in Glasgow and Arup Engineering, were released in September.

They were praised by David Dunbar, president of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, for promising "a new highly distinctive and prominent landmark".

Supporters point out that the building will replace the ugly 1972 Newbury Tower, and the 1968 Foulis Building, that show "little harmony" with the Mackintosh building. But critics question whether their replacement will be any better.

• New school of thought or back to the drawing board?

The artists' impressions publicly issued in September did not include an image of the two buildings face to face. The Scotsman requested that image which is published today.

Mr Curtis said he kept his early doubts to himself, but what emerged was "a still-born diagram without the life-blood and inspiration of a living work. The project continues to dominate its far more subtle neighbour," he wrote.

Steven Holl was chosen to design the GSA in 2009 on his preliminary sketches in an international competition. Mr Curtis said Mr Holl's "light tubes" meant to bring natural light deep into his building risked becoming "dull holes" behind "planar and monotonous facades". The glazed building could destroy the look of the Mackintosh building with a "surfeit of light", especially at night, when the original shines like a Japanese lantern, he said. Mr Curtis said: "The Holl proposal seems to require a lot more work."

Other notable critics include Murray Grigor, the Scottish writer and film-maker whose 1966 film on Charles Rennie Mackintosh won five international awards and helped re-establish the architect's modern reputation.

He told The Scotsman: "The reality is that the GSA wanted Holl, who is a fine architect and an international brand. But I can't see how those walls of glass can do anything other than offend Mackintosh's masterpiece."

Mr Grigor said he would highlight the issue at this year's Venice Biennale, where his recent film on a famous 1960s Scottish building, St Peter's Seminary in Cardross, is showing.

Edinburgh-based architect Ben Tindall said: "It is a bit of a crime against humanity, as well as history.Who is going to love it? What interest is it going to have for a passerby? Will it ever get better as it gets old?"

And Scottish architect Alan Dunlop has written that the proposals "show no real understanding of the light and weather in Glasgow".

However, David Porter, head of the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the GSA, defended the choice of Mr Holl as "an architect raised in Seattle, a city of Glaswegian dampness and clouds" and said the designs were a "subtle and complex weave of light and shade."