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ZOOM ON : ARCHITECTURE
Edinburgh is such an interesting city for architecture lovers. With hundred of years of architectural evolution, from the medieval wynd streets of its Old Town to the modern, or even sometimes futuristic, architectural landmarks are disseminated all around the New Town.
Few are the buildings made of wood in Edinburgh and its region. The main reason being the lack of raw materials nearby. As a matter of fact Edinburgh possesses some of the best sandstone-made buildings in Europe and this was made possible thanks to the presence of great sandstone resources. Edinburgh was built on an ancient extinct volcano, thus the city always had an easy access to local sandstone resources, which explains why, when visiting the Old Town, we don’t find the familiar half-timbered houses we easily encounter in western Europe. Moreover using stone as a main resource for building houses during the medieval era protected the city from a lot of problems such as the fires, that were pretty common in cities mostly built from wood with narrow streets and helped preserve the old structures through the centuries. We’ll be focusing our analysis on the two main styles of the city of Edinburgh and then finish by mentioning the presence of modern architecture in the city.
THE OLD TOWN
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Starting with the Old Town and its classical buildings such as the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which was the home of the kings and queens of Scots. Nowadays the palace is used as a residence for the royal family in Edinburgh.
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The palace as we see it today is the work of the architect Sir William Bruce. He was the one who designed the plans of the palace. They were then executed during the middle of the 17th century. Even though the residence is quite new, the palace takes its foundations from an abbey built during the 12th century.
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The Old Town’s wynd streets stretch along a high cliff and the surrounding castle. A few meters away from the aforesaid castle, we can find a milestone of the impressive architectural challenges of the 16th century. The Gladstone’s land is a 500 year old, six stories building, once owned by the rich merchant Thomas Gladstone.
THE NEW TOWN
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The New Town of Edinburgh follows strict rules in terms of urbanism, straight roads, squared blocks and neoclassical buildings. By 1836, the New Town was almost complete and contrasts a lot with the medieval narrow streets of southern Edinburgh. William Henry Playfair played a huge role in the design of the New Town as he planned most of the neoclassical structures. The National Gallery is one of them. He designed the building during the first half of the 19th century and it was achieved in 1859.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
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However, since the beginning of the 20th century, sandstone was replaced by concrete. The Scottish parliament was built from 1999 to 2004 and the main idea was that the parliament would “sit in land” and its construction would not disfigure the landscape.