Capital News

Someone bought the following to the republic`s attention, which is an excellent summary on recent events in the capital. It is from Wilson`s Weekly Wrap which appears in Architecture Scotland.

"Thinking out of the box, or just out of the box?
Like buses, you can go a long time without seeing anything in the Scotsman that is even vaguely about architecture and then – lo – two features in one week. Well, not so much features as opinion pieces by a duo of well-known architects stationed on separate sides of the Caltongate divide. The first, by Malcolm Fraser, sought to articulate the protagonists’ position and whilst it made a bold case for seeing the proposed architecture as a continuation of Edinburgh’s strong urban traditions, it lapsed early on into a justification of the kind of statistics so well-loved by politician and, by default, developers – the supposed number of jobs created in construction and the predictions of total jobs established as a result of the finished development itself.

The trouble with this argument is that developers are not actually in the business of creating jobs but, more fundamentally, in the business of making themselves piles of dosh. If the development equation most profitable to them also responds to outdated political imperatives, all well and good, but this usually equates to those aspects of their projects they can pre-let to others who actually are in the business of front-line employment. No pre-lets, no development finance: precisely the problem that brought down Mountgrange, the developer for Caltongate – put simply, nobody else saw commercial benefit in their project just at the time when the company most needed them to.

The question is whether or not the scheme that proved so seductive to the City of Edinburgh Council and the Chamber of Commerce will, when the economy begins to recover, prove to be quite as enticing. In any case – and Malcolm surely understands this all too well – the number of jobs created is never contingent upon the quality of the architecture proposed and any project for this site could just as easily max out the figures to suit its case for political approval. Whether or not the scheme is – as Malcolm asserts – hugely better than previous proposals for the site will no doubt be the subject of ongoing debate given that these predecessors were simply (as it was for Caltongate before the crunch) the most financially beneficial for the developers of the day. None were perfect, none were based on any assessment of the actual civic needs of Edinburgh.

So to James Simpson, an architect who, by virtue of the long tenancy his practice previously had in an office just off the Canongate, knows the Old Town just as intimately as Malcolm. As a noted conservationist, James makes the case for a more Geddes-ian approach, albeit less specific since he is not fronting an alternative project. James is spot-on in one respect though – history does show that times of high economic pressure are often bad for historic cities, although whether or not the principles espoused by Patrick Geddes could provide an alternative funding scenario for the Caltongate site is not a question likely to be tested by the City of Edinburgh Council.

The prime movers of the anti-Caltongate cause, however, has been SOOT (Save Our Old Town), a loose agglomeration of local residents and others that, in the wake of Mountgrange’s demise, has boldly initiated the formation of a ‘Canongate Community Development Trust’ to consider and promote an alternative vision for the site. Nobody should doubt the intentions or the energies of this group – they have been far sharper in generating press and public support than the aforementioned Mountgrange, despite the latter’s considerable investment in marketing and public relations. But the real question for this large city centre site is one the Council long ago abrogated responsibility for: the need for a proper civic vision that transcends the development imperatives of specific interest groups whichever sector they happen to come from.



Realpolitik in Charlotte Square
Given the way the tectonic plates of local politics have been shifting of late, it was probably bound to happen, so the only surprise is that it’s taken so long for Edinburgh’s World Heritage Trust (EWHT) to be banned by its two principal funders from commenting on major developments in the city. Not wishing to be seen to be wielding the big stick themselves, the city’s Council and Historic Scotland appointed consultants who – shock, horror - came to the conclusion that the Trust was “too adversarial” and was responsible for “considerable tension” with the two partner bodies that until now have provided it with £1m plus of public money per year.

The City of Edinburgh Council has, as the Wrap has mentioned before, always found itself confused by the World Heritage Site status awarded to its Old and New Town areas as a result of an application to Unesco by Historic Scotland in 1995 and consequently has tried to accommodate it in the only terms it understands - tourism and commercial benefit. Giving the EWHT carte blanche to veto duff planning applications certainly wasn’t part of that agenda, and there can be little doubt that the Trust’s acerbic comments on the Council-approved Caltongate project was the straw that finally gave the municipal camel the hump.



Not that it admits as much – no, Jim Lowrie, the current chair of planning, insists the Council is simply trying to “streamline” the planning process in the capital. What streamlining means in this instance is a requirement that the Trust direct its energies towards the promotion of the World Heritage site to tourists, to work with schoolchildren and to develop projects to restore historic buildings and monuments. The latter has a particular piquancy, given that the Council and Historic Scotland have long since ceased to allocate the levels of funding to the Trust that facilitated useful grant aid to building owners. And just to confirm it’s got the message, an EWHT source is reported as saying that “we’ve been told to keep our heads down or face substantial funding cuts…it was very much a case of take it or leave it.”

In days gone by (and surely that’s the world most loved by the EWHT board?), political pressure of this sort would not be tolerated and from the chair down, mass resignation would be the order of the day rather than be seen as the patsies who succumbed to totalitarian stricture. Not so, it seems: as chair of a now revisionist EWHT, Charles McKean has simply commented to the effect that ”the recommendations made reflect a change of emphasis towards more targeted grant-giving (sic), project work in the public realm and interpretation of the World Heritage site. That may well be the case, Charles, but it does make the rest of us wonder what the last 14 years of street-by-street, building-by-building combat by the Trust have really all been about. "

Does Caltongate's approval show heritage issues aren't important?

see here buildings to face the wrecking ball!

Yes
JAMES SIMPSON, conservation architect and vice-president of ICOMOS UK, an advisory body to Unesco

THE International Council on Monuments and Sites, which is responsible for monitoring the UK's World Heritage Sites, has been extremely concerned about the decisions taken on the Caltongate development to date.

One of the main issues of concern is that there is no extra protection for World Heritage Sites provided under the current planning system in Scotland.

We hope that will be addressed under the new planning act which is going through the Scottish Parliament at the moment so that World Heritage Sites have specific guidelines for protection over and above other areas.

The main problem with Caltongate is that the decision to demolish two listed buildings has effectively allowed the developer to greatly expand the size and scale of their scheme.

One of the great principles of urban conservation in Edinburgh, dating back to the time of Patrick Geddes, is that any interventions into the existing landscape should be kept as small as possible and not be too overwhelming.

Unfortunately, that is what we feel will happen with the Caltongate development, which we feel is simply not good enough for Edinburgh's World Heritage Site.

We have been living through an era where there has been high development pressure in cities such as Edinburgh and it does seem as if heritage concerns have been neglected.

The city council does seem to have been going for a more competitive approach to development in recent years.

However, our view would be that the balance has swung too far.

Read other side of argument from Chamber of Commerce (sick bag recommended)


Caltongate Go ahead may put heritage at risk Article 19th June Scotsman

Awards In Architecture?

Architects refuse to think outside of their ugly concrete boxes

BBC Scotland's new HQ in Glasgow has won a top architectural award. That proves ugliness still triumphs in the weird world of architecture. I reached splutter stage - that shower of toast moment - when I heard of this "achievement".

For the BBC building is a featureless crate dumped on the banks of the Clyde. It is known among staff as "the box the Science Centre came in". Why can't today's architects think outside the box? Boring boxy shapes come in two sizes - either a shoebox of medium height or a high-rise concrete cornflake packet. But the style has changed little since the 1960s, the worst of all design decades. Can't we get away from that?



With architecture, the accepted orthodoxy is to praise the emperor's new clothes in case we are thought to be outdated and unreceptive to new ideas, blah blah. But surely it is these awful monoliths that are outdated? The luvvies at the Royal Incorporation of British Architects have made the BBC box one of the top winners in what they call the "regional" awards - to compete later in London for a "national" award.


FOR those of us who've seen the Beeb box inside, it doesn't improve. The first time I entered, I thought the long overhead walkways built round a central well seemed familiar. Gosh, it's the Barlinnie style, without the charm. All it missed was the rattle of potties as prisoners crossed the walkways, taking their chamber pots to the sluice. Many thought we'd wised up on the grim, ghastly Sixties and Seventies buildings - the only good thing about them is that many are being demolished. We are continuing an obsession to make everywhere look like Slough where, in 1937, Sir John Betjeman foresaw the ugliness which would grip Britain when he wrote: "Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough; it isn't fit for humans now."


But Edinburgh people are putting up a really spirited fight against the new conformity - for most of May there have been protests about developments. Conservation architect James Simpson says: "Edinburgh is at greater risk now than it has been since the 1960s." That's a big statement as the Sixties saw the brutalising of Princes Street and the capital's George Square. The focus of protestors is Edinburgh City Council's decision to approve most of a £300million development of part of the ancient Canongate, involving housing, shops, a hotel and a new public square - and the proposed demolition of a listed old school building.

This very hot brick is now being referred to Scottish Ministers, who already have the Trump row on their plates. But surely the Edinburgh proposals dwarf the stushie about Donald Trump's golfopolis? Trump-town is proposed for an unbuilt part of the Aberdeenshire coast and pastiche architecture is the aim, at least copying quite attractive old styles rather than boxes. In contrast, the "Caltongate" project will be in Edinburgh's UNESCO World Heritage site, close to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

The Proposed Caltongate Hotel

The designs look like another Anytown, Anywhere style, the bland and the boxy. The hype for Caltongate exceeds even the usual tripe about "iconic". The developers declare: "Very rarely, a development changes the entire dynamic of a major city. The breadth of vision behind the Caltongate project is stunning . . . it is in total harmony with the commercial life and history of Scotland's capital...." Ga'un yersels! What history could boxes be in harmony with in the ancient Canongate?

Julie Logan, a former town design expert now volunteering with the Canongate Community Forum, told me: "We've seen too many boxes go up in Edinburgh. When the Victorians built on even older sites, they at least retained the Scottish style, with items like crow stepped gables. "This project is just totally unsuitable for old Edinburgh."

TO my mind, the floodgates opened - après moi, le deluge - when the Holyrood building was dumped at the foot of the Royal Mile, a vast daud of concrete incongruously next to the ancient Palace, like a hooker lurking outside a convent. In Aberdeen, the superb Union Terrace Gardens are to have one of those spacecraft style buildings landing on it to create an arts centre. And at Culloden battlefield, the National Trust has come up with uber tosh to hype how the new visitor centre (a collection of boxes) "reinterpreted the landscape".

Maybe we should abandon all architectural awards or let the public judge because we have to walk past the stuff. We could think of new awards - MA for Moderately Awful or BA for Bloody Awful. As the American guru of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, once said: "The doctor can bury his mistakes but the architect can only advise his clients to plant trees."

By Dorothy-Grace Elder appears today in The Scottish Daily Express

Edinburgh At Risk Day Today Sat 31st May

Cartoon by Frank Boyle which appeared in The Evening News August 2007.
See bigger Cartoon here

Edinburgh At Risk Day Today Saturday 31st May 10 -4pm

“Edinburgh is at greater risk than it has been since the 1960`s”

Conservation Architect James Simpson OBE (ICOMOS newsletter Spring 2008)

James Simpson will be opening the day at approx 11am, venue at 8 St Marys which is open from 10am for coffees etc

Come and find out what’s going on in the city of Edinburgh and its surrounding areas. Have you got concerns about proposed developments, demolitions of buildings, disappearing green spaces and management of Common Good Land and Assets? Don’t know what to do? Come and meet others who have concerns and find what they are doing.

EAR was founded by a number of Edinburgh campaigns in 2007 and is a non-political umbrella organisation open to all who value the city’s communities, culture, history and her future. Campaigns involved so far include Save Our Old Town, Save Meadowbank, Orroco Pier (South Queensferry), Porty Greenkeepers, Friends of Corstorphine Hill and Save Glenogle Baths ...

Come along to The Canongate Project shop at 8 St Mary’s Street, just off The Royal Mile. Stay for entire day or drop in at whatever time suits you. Films, workshops and discussions etc

More at Save Our Old Town Website

Above is the architect Allan Murray and if you see him in your neighbourhood be afraid,be very afraid

Caltongate or Edinburgh must Die

"Caltongate" Calamity

This article appears in the Spring Newsletter of ICOMOS UK (not available on line as yet)

Written by Conservation Architect, James Simpson OBE

Edinburgh Old and New Towns World Heritage site:

“Caltongate” Calamity

On 6th February, the Edinburgh City Council was minded to approve major elements of the “Caltongate” re-development scheme, in the face of massive opposition from the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust and others, including a specially formed Canongate Community Forum which, through an effective web-site, has mobilised community support to keep homes for locals in the heart of the Old Town.

The “Caltongate” Site extends to 3.46ha on the North side of the Canongate, between Waverley Station and Holyrood, highly visible from the Calton Hill. The whole site is within the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1995. The plans commended by Councillors include a new five-star hotel, conference centre, houses and offices in the Old Town. It would involve the demolition of one listed building, all but the frontage of a second, and several tenanted houses.

Proposals to reduce 1930s stone-fronted tenements facing the Canongate were put on hold, with the developers, Mountgrange, being asked to look at ways of retaining the buildings for affordable housing. The Councillors’ decision will now be considered by Scottish Ministers.

ICOMOS-UK objected to the development, not on the grounds that the main part of the site - the former New Street bus garage - should not be developed, but because of the disastrous and unnecessary enlargement of the site to include adjacent land and buildings owned by the City Council, the disruption of the topography of the North side of the Old Town ridge, the unnecessary and unjustified demolition of listed and unlisted buildings in the Conservation Area, and for the sheer unattractiveness and inappropriateness of the proposals. As one resident put it ‘YES the bus garage site needs to be developed, but NO this is not the correct scheme and it will jar with everything else around it ....’.

The Old and New Towns were inscribed on the World Heritage list for their remarkable juxtaposition of two clearly articulated urban planning phenomena: the ‘herringbone’ burgh of the early Middle Ages, set on the tail of the crag, and the regular layout of the Enlightenment New Town, laid out on the high ground to the North. The harmonious relationship between these two contrasting historic towns, set astride what Sir Bernard Feilden has called the ‘great arena’ of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley valley, each with many important buildings, is what gives Edinburgh its unique character.


The burgage plots of the Canongate, founded as an ‘abbatial burgh’ dependent on the Abbey of Holyrood, were typically small and it is this pattern which gave the area its essential character and grain. Where this scale and grain has been respected, as in the development master-planned by John Hope to the South of the Canongate, the result is widely admired.

By contrast, the proposals for “Caltongate” - an entirely spurious name, incidentally - are overlarge and have ‘footprints’ which are large in relation to their height - quite the opposite of the successful Canongate South scheme - where some blocks are even higher than the maximum height indicated in the Master Plan for the area. They are also, by general consensus, architecturally undistinguished and out of place in the Old Town.

The “Caltongate” development as it stands will have a profoundly negative impact on the values of the World Heritage Site: it is also a missed opportunity to show that, if the fundamentals of size, scale and grain are got right, new development, however brave architecturally, can be successfully integrated with urban landscapes of international value. Edinburgh was for many years been seen as a trailblazer for urban conservation, commended for its far-sighted town planning policies initiated by Patrick Geddes - the father of town planning and of urban conservation - which had allowed the city’s skyline and urban spaces to evolve but maintain their significance over time.

“Caltongate” is symptomatic of a new trend towards development of extensive areas of cites as single projects - reminiscent, alas, of the Comprehensive Development Areas of the 1960s. Bath Western Riverside, a large, highly contentious scheme in the centre of the Bath World Heritage Site, is another. It extends to 35ha and thus occupies the same footprint as the Royal Crescent, the Circus, Queen’s Square, connecting streets, and some land to the south-west of these three great urban spaces, all combined. In Liverpool, Peel Holdings are floating plans for high-rise buildings, including 23,000 homes, along swathes of the land either side of the Mersey which would transform Liverpool in to a mini Shanghai.

All these projects raise the issue of how planning and redevelopment at this scale can respect the urban grain or sense of place in cities which have been recognised as having attributes marking them out as being of world significance. How should we define what is needed? As with so much else, Patrick Geddes’ principle of ‘conservative surgery’ puts the proper approach to the improvement of old cities in a nutshell. Geddes’ principles were followed to the South of the Canongate; not alas at “Caltongate”.

James Simpson gives the views of a long-standing Edinburgh resident on “Caltongate”:

Edinburgh is under greater threat than it has been since the 1960s. Everything about the “Caltongate” proposal is wrong:

· even more than the unlovable new City offices in Market Street, it intrudes into the Waverley valley and its podium disrupts the topography of the Old Town.

· the sheer size of the project cuts across all the principles of urban conservation, first expounded by Patrick Geddes. The New Street bus garage site was already large; it should not have been enlarged further.

· the traditional scale and 'grain' of the Canongate are ignored.

· the demolition of a stone tenement, part of the Canongate street frontage, and of Listed Buildings, including one owned by the City Council, should be unthinkable.

· the very name “Caltongate” is, in its meaninglessness, an insult to the intangible heritage of this most intellectual of cities!

· the process through the planning system has been tortuous and exhausting for all concerned.

The suggestion that this particular development, and others like it, are essential for the wellbeing of the City is, frankly, bizarre. It is surely self-evident that it is the sheer quality and consistency of Edinburgh in architectural and planning terms, which are the foundations of Edinburgh's greatness. The recent succession of overlarge and inappropriate developments, of which “Caltongate” is currently the most important, are undermining those foundations.

Change is essential, and conservation is often said to be the management of change. If the “Caltongate” project is stopped in its tracks, then work can begin again in earnest on defining the sort of change which Edinburgh needs. This project must be stopped.

See yesterday`s post on what YOU can do to stop this project

Public Inquiry for Caltongate?

Save Our Old Town Campaign

Swinney asked to call in Caltongate application

Today Monday, 25 February 2008 this article appears in the Scottish Parliament`s

Online Holyrood Magazine

Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth John Swinney has been asked to call in Edinburgh’s Caltongate planning application or hold a major inquiry by opponents of the scheme, including one of his party’s own MSPs.

Architect James Simpson wrote to Swinney late last week, stating that City of Edinburgh Council’s material interest in the site proposed for development and the high number of objections meant that a ministerial decision was appropriate.

Simpson, who is vice-president of the UK committee of the International Council for Monuments and Sites, funded by bodies including Historic Scotland and Edinburgh Council itself, also called for a public local inquiry. He asked Swinney to consider the views of the Reporter in such an inquiry before coming to a final decision.

Lothians SNP MSP Shirley- Anne Somerville has also written to the Cabinet Secretary asking him to call in the application with a view to addressing a number of concerns.

She said that she wasn’t necessarily against the development, but was against the actual plan that had been put forward. Meanwhile, Green MSP Robin Harper is calling for a public local inquiry and Independent MSP Margo MacDonald indicated in a recent column for the Evening News that she would support such moves.

In his letter to Swinney, Simpson says that the ‘Caltongate’ project was strongly backed by the previous administration on the council in a way which “verged on the improper”.

“It was simply inappropriate, in my view, for the council to encourage at the masterplanning stage, the demolition of a listed building in its ownership, which it had a statutory duty to protect.”

However, he stressed the main issue was the impact of the proposed project on the historic Canongate, the Waverley valley, iconic views of the Old Town from Calton Site as a whole.

“The suggestion that this particular development, and others like it,are essential for the wellbeing of the city is, frankly, bizarre. It is surely self-evident that it is the sheer quality and consistency of Edinburgh in architectural and planning terms, which are the foundations of Edinburgh’s greatness,” Simpson explained.

The Architectural Heritage Society for Scotland said that it hadn’t yet decided if it would write to Swinney, but that it was certainly considering it as there were “grounds for a public inquiry”. Grassroots group the Canongate Community Forum is asking people on its website to write to the Cabinet Secretary requesting a public inquiry.

However, a spokesman for developer Mountgrange said that there had been a four year process of consultation and dialogue, and that there was two to one backing for the scheme amongst members of the public.


“Historic Scotland, the nation’s heritage watchdog, has given support and the council has approved the masterplan and six out of seven of the applications. The democratic will of the people of Edinburgh is being followed, but it is a decision for Scottish ministers.”

Now lets see what truth if any has been uttered by Mountgrange`s spindoctor..


"four year process of consultation and dialogue"

The Caltongate Masterplan was unveiled to the public in October 2005, so that makes around two and a half years, not four...

and as for "consultation and dialogue" these words have been banded around for the two and a half years but their meanings never enacted..

"two to one backing for the scheme amongst members of the public"

Now from Mountgranges Caltongate News Jan 2008, that was posted to over 28,000 addresses within a one mile radius of the proposed Caltongate, they say

"Almost 700 (692 infact) residents returned questionnaires to the independent market research company to express their views on the proposed redevelopment of the site of the now demolished former bus depot and surrounding area. By a majority of 2 to 1, respondents said that they believed that the 300 million Caltongate project will improve Edinburgh`s Old Town."

So that equates to 346 members of the public, hardly anywhere near 224,312 members of the public, half the population of the cit, that they are implying ... (population of Edinburgh 448,624 at the 2001 Census)

Now that hardly compares to the thousands who have signed the online and paper petitions against the scheme? And of course the hundreds who have objected to the individual planning applications.

As for Historic Scotland that will be explored in tomorrows blog........