CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Luxury hotel planned for Old Royal High School" (or music school?)
(216 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Posted 9 years ago # -
Thankfully, it's made of some (so far) robust stuff.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The nearest many people will get is looking enviously in the windows.
I suspect that includes most of the people who work in the big building a few paces up the road.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Posted 9 years ago #
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"
LESS than £10 million will be returned to the public purse over the next 125 years if one of Edinburgh’s most acclaimed landmarks is allowed to be turned into a luxury hotel, The Scotsman has learned.
Edinburgh City Council has negotiated a one-off payment rather than annual income from a long-term lease it has agreed for the former Royal High School, on Calton Hill.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
"Edinburgh City Council has negotiated".
Did the council start them low and then knock them down a bit?
Posted 9 years ago # -
I must have missed the Godzilla movie where the monster leaves new buildings in its wake.
I do wonder whether Mr Black's hyperbola does anything to help his argument or will the relevant bods at Unesco skim through it and think if this dossier had been handwritten it would have been in green crayon...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Aside from the titles conferred on him by the Chipwrapper of "Leading Urban Conservationist", what's David Black's role in this apart from the writer of letters signed off "Apoplectic of Newington?".
I can fathom from google he's a former Sunday Times Journalist, and was the first chairman of the Southside Association who led/organised/was involved in campaigning against the expansion of Edinburgh University at the expense of the Southside in the 1970s. He is described in "Holyrood: The Inside Story" by Susan Bain as one of the most vocal journalistic critic of the Holyrood building, (either for architectural, political or other reasons) and comes across in that as a bit of an reactionary outsider rabble-rouser with an agenda of his own and not shy of a bit of hyperbole here or half-truths there if it suited his cause.
I'm sure there's folks on here who have more of an inside scoop on his credentials.
EDIT - by way of answering myself, he's a chair of the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, former chair of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland (Forth and Borders Group) specialised in art and architecture journalism and runs a company that produces reproduction Georgian interior fittings and the "largest supplier of Adam mantlepieces in Europe". He also wrote a book about Hermits and Termits.
I don't think he likes messing with anything Georgian so probably is not likely to be kind to anything like the RHS development.
Posted 9 years ago # -
That explains why he has never had any time to watch Gojira.
Posted 9 years ago # -
One man's "leading urban conservationist" is another man's "critic of anything built after 1840"
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Music school ripped for Royal High School takeover"
(I think they mean tipped).
What happened to "only a hotel could possibly use this?"
Posted 9 years ago # -
Unless the music school has been working out in the gym in prep for the takeover
Posted 9 years ago # -
Posted 9 years ago #
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"
NEW public venues for world-class concerts would be created in one of Edinburgh’s most celebrated buildings if a music school is allowed to take it over, its backers have announced.
The debating chamber created in the former Royal High School for a potential Scottish Parliament would instead become one of three performance spaces under a £15m revamp planned for the building.
Revealing their vision for the A-listed landmark for the first time, the charitable trust pursuing a new home for St Mary’s Music School said it would be available for 12 months of the year for public events.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
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Plans for the £55 million 5-star luxury hotel on Calton Hill, unveiled today, feature copper-clad “Inca-style”, stepped, grass-roofed terraces where hotel rooms will be.
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http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/royal-high-school-luxury-hotel-plans-unveiled-1-3875798
Posted 9 years ago # -
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@theSpurtle: AHSS condemnation of 'entirely wrong' old Royal High School hotel sparks heated debate:"
Posted 9 years ago # -
Plans for the £55 million 5-star luxury hotel on Calton Hill, unveiled today, feature copper-clad “Inca-style”, stepped, grass-roofed terraces where hotel rooms will be.
Gosh that sounds really tasteful doesn't it? I wonder what the sudden obsession with copper is?
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Bruce Hare is a passionate man. “No-one can say I’ve not done my best,” he said, his voice quivering as he unveiled the final vision of his dream to turn the old Royal High School into a world-class luxury hotel.
Appropriately, the location for revealing the new designs was the modern extension to the Victorian National Museum of Scotland, a much-loved building further adapted by award-winning architect Gareth Hoskins who has given shape to Hare’s dream.
The boss of Duddingston House Properties, the company which won the city council’s competition to transform the school, Hare looks intently at Hoskins’ images of the £75m project he hopes will become reality.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
God, that's horrible....
Posted 9 years ago # -
there's a pic on twitter that shows the new 'wings' looming over the pavement. can't see how that would work on calton hill.
Posted 9 years ago # -
There's something about the toadying term "High net worth individuals" that just gives me the boak. Also, there are many colourful Scottish terms for such people that the EEN could use, such as "£$%&(+* and %&^*.
Also, it's hideous.
Posted 9 years ago # -
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Captain Badbeard (@captainbadbeard)
04/09/2015 11:14
@theSpurtle @CyclingEdin I think it's marvellous, as a piece of photorealism. Not sure it would work in practice mind."
Posted 9 years ago # -
The Architects Journal has some more images and a good article about this:
It is clear that it would destroy views along Waterloo Place and loom large over the pavement.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I think even the "drone" view in the EEN shows that, much as they try to draw attention away from it. You have to realise of course, that high net worth individuals do not use pavements.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
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Preécis?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Have to say I do not mind that at all. It would be interesting to see a Waterloo Place elevation, but I think the overhang is much exaggerated by the wide-angle lens effect they have used in the mock-ups.
Beats the current pigeon and mould farm anyway.
Posted 9 years ago # -
It is clear that it would destroy views along Waterloo Place and loom large over the pavement.
Unlike Tait's St Andrew's House this thing completely ignores the notion of sympathetic preservation of the skyline of Calton Hill. I think it's horrible in that location.
In fact, it looks like someone poured brown Plaster of Paris into an open cast coal mine and upturned the result.
Posted 9 years ago #
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