Farewell to the Toomath’s Buildings then. Designed by architect William Crichton, completed by 1901. Survived years of neglect – did not survive a group of vagrant youths setting fire to it. Well and truly gone now, a digger has smashed it into pieces, without a hope of the building ever coming back. Could it have been saved? Well, yes, probably, but not once a fire had…
fire
8 Articles
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nemo
5 Min Read
There’s a depressing familiarity with the news of the destruction by fire of the sawtooth roofed buildings at Shelly Bay. It is the classic “accident” that so often happens to heritage buildings – the building is carefully preserved for years, the building gradually deteriorates, and just when something was going to be done, the building mysteriously burns down. Except in this case, perhaps not quite so…
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nemo
9 Min Read
It is a pretty sad day to be writing – and we all know what about. Just over 36 hours ago, a building in Newtown caught fire and burnt out, killing at least 6 people, with 11 other people still not accounted for – so possibly up to 17 people dead. It is so sad because these lives were lost needlessly, tragically, and without any justification…
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Leviathan
2 Min Read
I woke up this morning to hear the unbelievable news that Notre Dame de Paris was on fire – and by tonight it was all over. Impossible to think that it could happen at first, and yet when you stop to think about it, it is a wonder that it hasn’t happened before now. 850 years old with barely a scratch, and then when you start…
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Leviathan
3 Min Read
A couple of years on from the horrific Grenfell fire, the British authorities are still trawling through the ashes (so to speak) to find out what went wrong and what they should be doing to make it right. Other countries appear to be acting just as fast – or even faster. We asked at the time: “I don’t know about you, but some questions spring to…
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Leviathan
3 Min Read
I just about wept when I heard about the first fire at the Mackintosh School of Art in 2014. I’m not at all amused that they have just suffered a second fire, only months before the building was due to be handed over, post-restoration. To lose your building once is a tragedy, to lose it twice is just careless. And when you have a building as…
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Leviathan
1 Min Read
Is there anything more scary than the sight of a tall building on fire? Grenfell Tower in West London was in flames all Wednesday, burning through the night like a giant torch – this is a major, major incident. Apart from the loss of life (at the moment only reporting 6 dead, but surely set to rise considerably), my guess is that this will also have…
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Maximus
2 Min Read
The local media hasn’t caught up with this just yet, but we have just seen the greatest loss of architecture since – well, I don’t know. Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece of design, the Glasgow School of Art, caught fire yesterday, in preparation of the 4th year final degree show. Sparks on foam, in the basement, and as flames were filmed breaking out of the roof, for…
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