The Glasgow School of Art, which is centered around a Charles Rennie Mackintosh-designed building known as "the Mac," is getting a glassy, modern update. American architect Steven Holl, in collaboration with Glasgow-based JM Architects, has won a competition to design a new building for the GSA that will sit across from the Mac.
[Holl] said Mackintosh's design enabled natural light to enter his building, and the new building also has "driven voids of light", which means natural light will stream into the centre of the building as well as into the all-important studio space for students. The building, to be finished by 2013, will be coated in a skin of matt glass, giving it a translucent quality but one that will not be overly reflective, he said."Some of the modern glass buildings, they are too glassy, they have that ugly 'oil canning' effect on the glass, and this will not have that,"he said. He added: "We could not try to copy or imitate the Mackintosh building; that would be wrong, kitschy and almost disrespectful in some way. So what we have instead is a counterpart to that great building. Whereas the Mackintosh has a thick skin and thin bones, our building has a thin skin and thick bones. They are complementary."
via herald scotland