restoration

July 22 (UPI) — The Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh building, damaged twice by fire, would cost too much for the school to fully rebuild on its own, the school’s board of governors said Wednesday.

Rebuilding the school in line with artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s original design would cost about $355 million, the school said in a press release Wednesday.

That amount is “equivalent to five times the GSA’s annual turnover [revenue], an amount that is not affordable and which would compromise the financial sustainability of the institution.”

The Art Nouveau building, completed in 1909, was damaged by fire twice. Much of the building was destroyed in 2014 after a student’s art project was ignited by an overhead projector. In June 2018, when the rebuilding was nearly complete, another fire destroyed it. There was no cause found for the second fire, which ignited a dispute between the school and its insurance company that ended in arbitration that wrapped up this spring.

Neil Baxter, architectural historian and former lecturer in architectural history at the school, said the building is “of the greatest world importance,” and said, “The Scottish government should step up, and if it can’t, the British government should step up,” The New York Times reported.

The school released an 80-page analysis Wednesday that highlights the potential for the Mackintosh Building “to become an anchor project in a creative and cultural production innovation district, attracting investment to the city, driving the growth of its creative economy, and supporting new businesses and employment opportunities.”

Ann Priest, chair of the Glasgow School of Art’s board of governors, said early discussions with Scottish and British government officials ahead of the announcement “have been supportive and incredibly positive.”

Priest said the board believes the building should be a “heritage-led economic regeneration project, building on the existing creative and cultural production assets within this part of the city, to strengthen Glasgow’s creative eco-system and its position as one of the UK’s leading creative economies.

“The Mack will always have a special place at the heart of The Glasgow School of Art’s history, and we have further plans within the next phase of work to create museum standard interpretations of the building that will exist alongside its retained architectural elements and help tell the story of this remarkable place and the people who have worked and studied there for years to come,” Priest said.

Gordon Gibb, a former director of professional studies at the school’s architecture department, said that the school needs another organization to “take over” the restoration.

“This is a building that influenced world architecture and changed Victorian traditionalism into modernism,” Gibb told The Times. “We have detailed records of every part of it,” he added, “so it should be brought back.”

Caracas, June 23, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Thousands of retired workers from Venezuelan state telecommunications company CANTV have staged protests in recent days to demand the restoration of a monthly “income complement” payment.

On Thursday, CANTV suspended the US $200 monthly payment with no prior notice. The measure prompted emergency rallies outside the firm’s headquarters in Caracas, Barquisimeto, Valencia, and several other Venezuelan cities on Friday.

Active workers received the bonus as scheduled, though many joined the protests in solidarity.

The cutback reportedly affected around 10,000 retirees for whom the bonus represents over 70 percent of their monthly income. Many told reporters that the unjustified cutback placed an immediate strain on day-to-day survival, especially for those suffering from chronic illnesses.

The swift grassroots response prompted the company to backtrack and pay the retired workers $150 over the weekend. The CANTV retired workers’ plight also drew support from the World Federation of Trade Unions.

“The company thought that we would be the weakest link in their bid to cut costs at the workforce’s expense,” retiree Arturo Morgado told Venezuelanalysis. “But the protests all over the country told a different story.”

Monday saw around 300 workers demonstrate again outside CANTV headquarters in Caracas. A commission from FETRAJUTEL, a trade union representing the firm’s retired workforce, met with the CANTV board but received no commitment that the remaining $50 will also be paid. 

The announcement led protesters to temporarily block Libertador Avenue in central Caracas, vowing to maintain the pressure until the full bonus is restored.

“We are going to continue fighting, for the entire bonus and for other rights established in our collective bargaining agreement, including financial support for medical expenses and incomes that cover the cost-of-living,” Morgado added. “The company put these commitments in writing in a meeting with unions in late 2023.”

The former CANTV technician highlighted the “moral strength and honesty” of the retired workforce and warned that the present bonus-over-wage government policies leave workers vulnerable to discretionary cuts. Morgado’s social security pension is worth 570 bolívars per month, less than $1 at the present exchange rate.

With the Venezuelan economy heavily sanctioned by the US, the Nicolás Maduro government increasingly turned to non-wage bonuses while letting the minimum wage continuously devalue. Trade unions have criticized the policy for cheapening labor costs for employers and contravening the existing labor law.

Since taking over in January, after the US kidnapping of Maduro, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has maintained the policy. On May 1, she increased the minimum monthly income for public sector workers to the official bolívar-equivalent of $240 a month, while pensioners received $70. Public sector retirees are entitled to $170 monthly, but in certain cases, like CANTV, they have secured improvements in direct negotiations with the company.

The labor dispute comes amid a controversial effort by the Rodríguez administration to “reengineer and restructure” the Venezuelan state, including public companies such as CANTV. The state telecoms provider was privatized in 1991 under the terms of IMF-imposed structural adjustment and partially acquired by a consortium headed by GTE, today Verizon. CANTV was re-nationalized by the Hugo Chávez government in 2007 and is currently under the purview of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez, tasked by Miraflores with leading the state reform commission, recently sought to allay fears of massive public sector layoffs. He instead  suggested that workers might be “strategically relocated and retrained” in order to improve the public sector efficiency.

The acting administration has likewise launched a process to determine the “strategic” value of state-owned assets. A commission, featuring government officials and private sector representatives, will recommend whether the state should retain ownership of firms, land estates, and other assets or open them for privatization.

Financial advisory group Orinoco Research identified CANTV as a prime candidate for privatization, while libertarian think tank CEDICE Libertad called the prior sale of the telecom company a “model to replicate.” The 1991 privatization was followed by a process of asset stripping that dismantled the firm’s regionally advanced technical base and institutionalized outsourcing and arbitrary firings.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.