Things We Lost In The Fire

‘I found the narrow, wonderfully creaky, dark timber gallery that ran around the top of the library, with its cabinets full of original illustrated books by Heath Robinson, Edmund Dylan, Arthur Rackham and many others. It was a magical place, where I could disappear into for several hours undiscovered . . . I saw the news of the fire while watching TV with my mother, who had also been a student there. We sat in stunned disbelief. I was in tears. What a strange effect a building can have: so full of generations of artists’ memories. I came from Edinburgh to see it a week after the fire, when the smell of burning was still intense. I was in tears again; we were all so fond of her.’ - A year ago, in Issue 9 of Article, we published ‘Things We Lost In The Fire’ - a collection of memories of the Glasgow School of Art, inspired by the Mac Photo Archive, an extraordinary website set up in the wake of the 2014 fire to collect pictures and recollections of the school across the decades. Words by Clare Hewitt, who graduated from the School’s Design and Illustration course in 1980: photo by Gareth Lindsay, who graduated in Communication Design in 2013.