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It has been over ten years since a fire first caused extensive damage to the landmark. A second blaze broke out near the end of a £35 million restoration project in June 2018.
During Culture questions in Holyrood on Wednesday, the Labour MSP, Paul Sweeney, pointed to the rebuild of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which reopened last month, a little more than five years after it was gutted by fire in April 2019.
“More than seven years on, we still have very little progress on the restoration of Glasgow School of Art, Scotland’s greatest ever architectural achievement,” he added.
He asked if Mr Robertson would agree to convene a “cross-government and cross architectural sector and Scotland summit to bring together a special purpose vehicle or special sponsor body to take forward the Glasgow School of Art restoration project.”
The MSP continued: “Because currently it is stymied by the ongoing litigation in dispute with the insurers and the Glasgow School of Art. And it is simply too big a project, too complex a project, to be left to the Glasgow School of Art alone.
“It is a national project that should be treated as such.”
Mr Robertson said he too admired “the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris and the speed with which that was completed.”
He added: “Proposals [on the Glasgow School of Art] are expected to be completed and published early this year, and I will be content to convene a meeting to discuss what emerges from that, because further unnecessary delays is not something that I know he wants to see, and it is not something that I want to see, and the speediest restoration that we could see possible is something that I am very supportive of.”