A string of new developments are threatening Edinburgh’s Unesco status. Is that a reason not to build? David Pollock talks to both sides

In the Scottish Cafe beneath William Henry Playfair’s ambitiously Grecian 1859 Scottish National Gallery building, the architect Gareth Hoskins sips tea and looks out over Princes Street Gardens. “It’s one of Edinburgh’s finest views,” he says. “And all you have is this little strip of pavement outside to enjoy it from in the summer.”

His Glasgow-based firm will shortly put an accessible plaza here – a refreshingly non-controversial project in a city that has been shaken by a series of proposed new developments.



A mile away is Thomas Hamilton’s 19th century Royal High School. Another impressively colonnaded homage to Athens, it stands proud on the side of Calton Hill in an airy, quiet spot that is very visible from the Old Town. In three week’s time, just before Christmas, the city’s planners will decide whether or not to approve its conversion into a luxury Rosewood hotel. Hoskins’s firm has proposed new-build contemporary extensions to either side – dubbed “Mickey Mouse ears” by the less-enthused.

Edinburgh’s world heritage status in peril as developers move in Read more

Meanwhile, the so-called “ribbon hotel” – also not so lovingly known as “the turd” – will replace the unloved St James Shopping Centre. This, as well as the plan to redevelop a dozen prime central spots known as the “Edinburgh 12”, has locals worried about destroying a unique, centuries-old architectural heritage. There have been ever-louder murmurings that Edinburgh could be stripped of its Unesco World Heritage status, as happened to Dresden in 2009 after a four-lane bridge was built over the Elbe.

Few cities embody the battle between the forces of development and the defenders of architectural heritage quite like Edinburgh. On one hand it’s a busy, livable, commercial city with space to grow confidently into the 21st century. On the other, it is a unique historical jewel. In the city’s compact heart, you’re never far from a development site whose worth is hotly contested.

“There are over 2,000 objections to the Royal High development,” says Marion Williams, director of Edinburgh civic trust the Cockburn Association, which opposes the plan. “We have somebody who’s made a viable proposition to make this the city’s Music School, but the politicians want to build hotel after hotel because they get stuck in this rut. The emphasis is on bringing tourists to the city, but if you’re going to build hotels in sensitive sites then you’re destroying what people might want to come and see.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The A-listed Old Royal High School, on Calton Hill, could become a Rosewood hotel. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Certainly the soon-to-be-demolished St James shopping centre wasn’t one of those tourist attractions. At the top of Leith Walk, the brutalist grey concrete of this hulk has been a mostly unloved feature of Edinburgh since it was completed in 1973 – but its replacement hasn’t reassured critics either. There will be new alleys of limestone commercial buildings leading to the centrepiece: a gold-edged, orange-peel walkway unspooling around a hotel. It’s meant to be an unfurled printer ribbon, representing Edinburgh’s history of literature and journalism, though many locals say it looks more like a Walnut Whip. Everyone agrees it’s bold, but many say it is out of keeping with the city’s famed character, founded on weathered sandstone and Georgian elegance.

If you’re going to build hotels in sensitive sites then you’re destroying what people might want to come and see Marion Williams

Heinz Richardson, director of London-based architects Jestico + Wiles, defends the design, which has already been approved. “Our scheme was carefully developed to add to the status of Edinburgh, and to be of the 21st century,” he says. “We’re not architects who design pastiche buildings. This will be a great addition to the Edinburgh skyline.”

Critics point to the city council’s £126m budget shortfall over the next four years, which has led councillors, they allege, to permit hasty redevelopment without adequately accounting for Edinburgh’s unique place in the pantheon of cities.

“Nobody’s asking for anything to be gold-plated. Good architecture isn’t any more expensive than poor architecture,” says James Simpson, a consultant to the architects Simpson and Brown and one of the executive committee of Icomos-UK, whose Paris-based equivalent advises Unesco on the designation of World Heritage sites. “I would express concern,” Simpson says. “Not just about some very obvious, major planning decisions, but about the generally poor standard of new architecture in the city. Nobody’s resistant to change – it’s simply a question of quality and appropriateness within a World Heritage site.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Edinburgh skyline from Calton Hill at sunset. Photograph: Alamy

Nevertheless, he believes that the headlines about the imminent removal of World Heritage status are alarmist. Dresden spent three years on a Unesco “red list” and ignored its advice about the bridge before being stripped of the title.



Hoskins understands why he sometimes meets resistance in Edinburgh. Glasgow, where his firm is based, is newer and more industrial – though “more adventurous” is a phrase he doesn’t want to use. “It’s about trying to understand the heritage of the place you’re working with,” he says of his approach. “What’s special about it and where can you take it now?”

Nobody’s asking for anything to be gold-plated. Good architecture isn’t any more expensive than poor architecture James Simpson

In person he is affable and engaged, and people on both sides of the debate are impressed by him. The Royal High School is smaller than you might imagine inside, he says; the new wings are intended to accommodate the necessary room space while leaving the original building untouched. He shows me images of the Leopold and Mumok museums, sharp-edged modernist cubes set alongside the neoclassical Kunsthalle in Vienna.

“These are in a World Heritage site, yet they work,” he says. “In summer, they put these funky chaise longues on the plaza. The place is mobbed. In winter, they turn them on their sides and they become little mulled-wine bars. The place is alive until midnight. Why can’t that be Calton Hill?”

There is £75m in private money available for the Royal Hill School development, which he says is a fact to be celebrated.

But could the World Heritage status really go?

How are protected views shaping cities? Read more

“That’s a question I’ve been asked a lot,” says the city’s planning convener, councillor Ian Perry. “My instinct is no. Clearly if we ignore our Unesco management plan sufficiently then we’d be in trouble, but I don’t think we’re at that stage. I’m not going to say every decision taken in relation to the World Heritage site has been the right one, but if all these bodies (on opposing sides) think we have it wrong, I feel on balance we probably have it right.”

“Cities work because different elements have come together and melded into a city,” Hoskins says. “The building above where we’re sitting [the Scottish National Gallery] – that was a big, brave piece of architecture when it was built. As was the Royal High School, to blast the side off Calton Hill and build something like that … Let’s be as brave with what we’re doing now, and as confident. This city was built on confidence. It’s about making a place that people can continue to enjoy, not a museum.”

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion