“What are our city fathers thinking?”
“Well they are obviously not listening to our City Mothers!”
So concluded a conversation I had recently with an old friend, perched on Salisbury Crags, contemplating ‘Edinburgh’s iconic skyline’.
We had been discussing the concerns of The Edinburgh World Heritage Trust regarding the detrimental effect of developments both planned and already under construction: The Quartermile skyscrapers on the site of the old Royal Infirmary, the proposed tower designed to be Edinburgh’s answer to the famous “Gherkin” in London as part of the redevelopment of the much vilified St James Centre, and the 16-storey Haymarket hotel being planned by the Irish developer Tiger.
The main thrust of any argument against these developments seems to relate back to the issue of our skyline, for it is this skyline that ensures Edinburgh’s status as opposed to it’s architecture per-se: the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The Edinburgh World Heritage Trust expressed their concerns in a submission to the council:
“It is a fact that Edinburgh’s historic skyline is dominated by church spires and narrow, sometimes broken, unoccupied structures.
“The building will overshadow the existing buildings and townscape, and unfortunately we do not believe that this building will make a positive contribution to the World Heritage Site.”
What strikes me is we seem to be looking at things from one point of view here; an elevated one; detached, lofty and sentimental, like the view from Salisbury Crags on a summer evening with the benefit of four cans of Guinness. While this is an important view to take, it’s not the only one, and after all, our experience of the city is never this holistic when we are actually engaging with it. As an flâneur I take delight in roaming the streets and wynds, alleys and disused railways of Edinburgh. Small snippets of views present themselves: walls and bridges frame roofs and windows in an ever-changing urban slideshow. With every step a new perspective is gained.
Now I’ve never been one for grand views: two thirds of the way up Ben Nevis I decided I’d be better off sitting myself down on a rock and working my way through a carton of Regal King-size than lugging my bursting lungs up to the top. “You’ll be blown away by the view” passing ramblers, randy for the pinnacle told me. No I won’t. The view from the top is much like the view from two thirds of the way up; only what you’re looking at is farther away. Much like the overview achieved from my vantage point on the Crags, it’s nice enough for a wee moment or two of contemplation, but I’d always sooner be down on the street.
What bothers me most is not the infringements on the upper tiers of the cityscape, but how the living details change; when a familiar building disappears, a measure of memory is erased. When I was wee boy of three or four I wandered off from my parents in the long gone Goldbergs department store, torn down in 1990 after it’s thirty-year existence. The only thing that remains with me of that day is the child’s helicopter ride in the foyer, naturally where I headed. In my minds eye I can see a white tiled space filled with light and silence, like a shrine built only to house this toy helicopter. Goldbergs always seemed an ethereal sort of place. This of course was not the case. I looked at the only picture of Goldbergs I could find (see here if you are interested) and it was nothing like my memory informs me. I felt somewhat cheated; what right have they to take away a point of reference like that? Other early memories can be revisited, for instance, with a stroll through Waverley Station or Scotland Yard Park. While these places have changed drastically in the last two-and-a-bit decades, they are still recognisable and the essence of them remains intact.
Change is of course only natural, but what is unnatural is the rapid, uncompromising process by which an edifice can be raised and replaced, leaving the denizens of the area reeling. While I can live with time’s gentle erosion of for example the lighthouse at the end of Granton’s East Pier, and lament its organic reclamation while cementing my recollections with occasional visits, the fact my high school buildings were claimed by bulldozers and fire is less palatable. If my memories of Goldbergs turned out to be erroneous, what will become of my adolescent recollections? How can they survive with accuracy without the crystallizing effect that can only be gained by revisiting the old place?
While the creatures of commerce and the skyline conservatives to and fro with their visions of how Edinburgh should be; adorned with domineering avant-garde statements, or a city that clings to its historic aesthetic, I feel there is an overlooked middle ground. No one seems concerned with the preservation of the lowbrow architecture that we’ve actually lived with and been shaped by. The modernist structures constructed in the fifties and sixties have in less than half a century gone from being manifestos for a better future, to crumbling reminders of cultural arrogance. I see another aspect though; as with my emotional connection with the spectre of Goldbergs department store intimates, the city’s buildings- however ugly dated or misplaced- are more than just small pieces in a grand work to be viewed from afar, in isolation. Every nook and cranny resounds with memory and nostalgia, more important to the individual than the skyline is to the collective. The city fathers should perhaps listen to the city’s children? •
