INTRODUCTION

Creative Allies

This year’s edition of MACMAG seeks to explore the relationship between the arts and architecture. Through a range of conversations and articles we explore the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary practice, showcasing a celebration of diversity in our architectural education and industry.

The Mackintosh School of Architecture sits within a unique context both geographically and socially; the art school’ s presence poses as an intrenchment on the architecture school’s values. This enrichment for the school comes from a reliance on the arts, both academically and in an informal social relationship. MSA prides itself on it' s contextual relationship with the art school. Our building, the Bourdon, sits with other studios filled with artists, photographers and fashion designers across the street. As students, it is inevitable to be immersed in a diverse array of creative disciplines, whether consciously or subconsciously. This exposure has a profound impact on students' perspectives, their creative output, and the trajectory of their professional journey beyond academia. Our interviews with Will Knight, former MSA student turned artist, and Andy Summers, an architect, educator and curator, explore this idea further.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who our school is named after, is a prime example of where this collaboration between the arts can be seen working at its best. Charles, and fellow architecture student James Herbert MacNair, formed a creative alliance with sisters Margaret and Frances Macdonald, day students at GSA, to produce an innovative and distinctive design style which came to be known as the ‘Glasgow style’. We are reminded of Mackintosh’s legacy every time we pass by the Mackintosh Building. We delved into his work and his approach to the arts and architecture in our conversation with Liz Davidson

The school’s ability for dawning professional and social relationships with the arts is clear. Though can we assume this is carried through to practice?

As students of the Glasgow School of Art we pose the question: what is the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary practice? How do the arts manifest in this? We ask, where is the line between arts and architecture and is this line continuously moving?

In a period of post pandemic global uncertainty the urgent concerns of climate change were again on our minds, so in Stage 1 for 2021-22 we continued our preoccupation with the future inhabitation of the planet. Our core ethos, taken from RIAS’ Sustainability Policy 2016 ‘Maximum Architectural Value - Minimum Architectural Harm’ was our guide as we explored architecture under a series of historical and contemporary lenses.

‘Architecture & HUMANS’ was a 5 week critical enquiry into ethical and equitable design for people of ‘difference’. We investigated aspects of space, light, comfort and wellbeing to redesign a familiar space for people of physical and neurological divergencies.

‘Architecture & VALUES’ moved us to an urban scale to undertake a 3 week investigation of Olympia House in the East End of Glasgow. Through drawing this existing building, inside and out, at a variety of scales we probed what can be ‘valued’ in architecture. This project developed into ‘architecture & PLANET’, a design proposal for the adaptive re-use of Olympia House with an emphasis on low