by David Black
(Bella Caledonia, 20 Oct 2020)
At some point in the next few weeks Scottish ministers are poised to rule on the future of Edinburgh’s former Royal High School, the subject of one of the most hard-fought planning disputes since Donald Trump won consent for his Aberdeenshire golf course. City councillors previously voted not once, but twice, to reject the scheme to convert the A listed 1829 neoclassical structure on the Calton Hill into an ‘international luxury’ hotel with much derided ‘Mickey Mouse Ears’ extensions The applicants instantly lodged an appeal with the Scottish government. [...] The area by the entrance became the location for a non-party devolution vigil which lasted for a meaningful 1979 days and nights, by which time Labour had accepted the principle of Scottish devolution. Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar, however, opposed the use of the building on the specious grounds that it was a ‘Nationalist Shibboleth’, though a civil servant accompanying him on a visit to the building suggested that the moment he really lost the plot was when he spotted a ‘woman of achievement’ plaque to the radical Scottish patriot Wendy Wood. Ownership reverted to the council and a plan for a Scottish Photographic Centre backed by Sir Sean Connery among others was launched, but failed to win support from First Minister Jack McConnell. [...]
READ FULL ARTICLE
______________________
ALSO BY DAVID BLACK -
Mythologising modernism
(Sceptical Scot, October 17, 2020
Thanks to the comforting anaesthetic of its own douce gentility Edinburgh may not look like a city in crisis. But, as the infamous Golden Turd arises in the east and the ruins of its cash crop economy – mass tourism – emerge through the miasma of the global pestilence, we should not only pay attention to some of our civic disasters, but also ask ourselves if there’s a better way of doing things....
______________________
