DETAILED PLANNING APPLICATION LATER THIS WEEK
Proposals to rehome St Mary’s Music School and create new public performance spaces in the old Royal High School were officially announced this morning.
A detailed application will be submitted to City of Edinburgh Council later this week.
In fact, many of the details have been circulating via social media since the weekend, but the current orchestration is designed to present officials and councillors with a viable alternative to Duddingston House/Urbanist Group’s plans for a luxury hotel on the same site when that application is considered on 17 December.
Counter-claims on future timing
William Gray Muir, Chair of the Royal High School Preservation Trust (RHSPT), said in today's press statement:
We fully recognise that the City of Edinburgh Council is not currently in a position to accept our offer due to its existing commitment to a commercial development. However, we have consulted widely and believe that our plans satisfy the need for conservation, public access, a culturally suitable and economically sustainable use. Therefore, if the commercial application were refused, the Trust is poised and ready to enter any new competitive process to acquire the building for St Mary’s Music School. Such a process could be completed in a matter of months.
RHSPT stresses that if the hotel scheme failed to gain planning planning consent, City of Edinburgh Council ‘would be at liberty to dispose of the building as it sees fit in line within its normal estate policies. If appropriate the Trust would be happy to enter any new competitive process to acquire the building (alongside the commercial developer if necessary). This could be completed in a matter of months’.
In so saying, they rebut rival claims, reported in the Evening News to have been made by Urbanist's Taco van Heusden, that 'any rejection of the hotel scheme would mean putting the plot back out to public tender – a process that could take years'.
New school buildings, new public performance spaces
As exclusively reported by the Spurtle on 10 November, RHSPT’s plans include:
- a new public entrance at the front of the building
- three new public performance spaces, including a 300-seat concert hall with flexible seating arrangements and original flanking stairs restored
- a new foyer for use by school and concert-goers
- stairways/lifts rising from the foyer to the main hall above.
Readers will gain the clearest impression of what is proposed in a vertiginous fly-through available by following this highlighted link.
Got a view? Tell us at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk and @theSpurtle and Facebook
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The first eight comments below were made in response to our Saturday 5 December posting of a link to the YouTube fly-through.
John Croall Impressive, do they have funding in place?
Fiona Allen This is great! Tasteful. Appropriate. Respectful. All the things our benighted Council seem to dislike.
Isobel Knox its a no brainer, as they say!
Elaine Hutton Looks good. I didn't mind there being another hotel, we don't seem to have enough in Edinburgh, but this looks like a more sympathetic design.
Nikki MacLeod Looks excellent especially compared with the other appalling proposal for yet another hotel.
Philomena Montgomery Davies Just like the hotel, this plan will see the demolition of historic school buildings like the refectory and gymnasium, replaced by ugly modern architecture. It will see the front of this beautiful building defaced by blasting through the stone to create a 'grand entrance' and lit by a skylight cut through the floor of the architrave. It's architectural vandalism but, unbelievably, seems to have the full backing of the city's watchdogs like the Cockburn Association. The presence of Willie Gray Muir tells you all you need to know about this, the man currently destroying the Craighouse Estate, cutting down tress to make room for hundreds of houses. This should be a public building like a gallery or museum not a hotel and not a private school for a select few which opens its doors for a handul of concerts every year.
@adamfuturepast @theSpurtle @theAHSS @thecockburn @stmarys_music @oldRoyalHigh @brianjaffa that's wonderful, that is
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Philomena Montgomery Davies This is less offensive than the hotel but still totally unacceptable. These plans still see the demolition of historic school buildings, the surrounding area filled with modern architecture and the desecration of the original building - an entrance wide enough for a bus blasted through the original front of the school into the basement and another massive hole cut into the floor of the architrave to be replaced with glass like some tacky Las Vegas hotel. It's architectural vandalism against possibly Edinburgh's finest building! That fact the so-called heritage watchdogs of the city are apparently all for this is an utter scandal.
Broughton Spurtle [In response to P.M. Davies] RHSPT press release this morning concluded: Adam Wilkinson, director of Edinburgh World Heritage, wrote in support of the RHSPT’s plans saying:
“The sensitive reuse of the former Royal High School has become one of the city’s major challenges and a test of our ability to manage outstanding universal value effectively within current systems of protections.
“These proposals are shaping up to support outstanding universal value and create an exemplar as to how to handle complex issues around reusing important, sensitive and difficult to adapt buildings. We have no doubt that there will be further fine tuning of the designs, but are deeply encouraged by the direction they are taking.”
Philomena Montgomery Davies I'm at a complete loss to understand why Edinburgh World Heritage, The Cockburn Association and The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland seem to be 100% behind this. Last month The Cockburn Association were protesting the demolition of an ugly concrete silo at Leith Docks. Now they are advocating the demolition of fine Victorian school buildings and the wilful desecration of the original school, cutting new entrances and windows into the old stones. Are they so desperate to block the awful hotel that anything else is preferable? Or have they been overawed by the American heiress philanthropist and her millions? Whatever the reason, by endorsing this they are failing in their duty of care to the city's heritage. It's shocking.
Philomena Montgomery Davies I think there's a danger that trying to avert the hotel disaster will see something less bad but still unsuitable. The Royal High School should be a genuinely public building not a private school. The many millions pledged to bankroll this should instead be used to turn the building into a cultural resource with full public access - a museum to the Scottish Enlightenment, an interpretation centre for Calton Hill or photography gallery, something which could see the original building preserved but without the need for the widespread demolitions, modern additions and unsightly alterations of the original school building.
@oldRoyalHigh @theAHSS @ArchHist @TheBEFS @papawasarodeo @theSpurtle Back to the Future cartoon at NLS
@theSpurtle this scheme also shows that a huge intervention such as proposed for the hotel is not necessary to save the original buildings.
Taco van Heusden @HeusdenTaco
@theSpurtle Did somebody check contract expiry and timing facts with CEC? (Hint: it's a nonsense)
@theSpurtle A far better plan than the hotel. Imagine actually adding some culture to the city. Ooooft.