Journey to The Future
Posted by a Contributor in August's MagazineEdinburgh is gorgeous. In a stop dead drink it in every single day kind of way. Its heart is medieval, its body neoclassical and its mind the setting for the Age of Enlightenment. Well, its mind may be a wee bit shortbread Disneyland too, but that’s all part of the tartan trap, the tease to tantalise the tourist.
Edinburgh, wet and impenetrable to those who’ve never experienced the religious fervour with which we inhabitants go about our business, is coming to the forefront of people’s minds as its two financial institutions face their own particular music. But as an architect, I see an Edinburgh blessed with designs cut from every historical age in written memory: some of the finest public and commercial monuments of neo-classical Europe reside in this city, reflecting its continuing status as a modern European capital and as an influential centre of thought and learning.
Not a native, I am perhaps all the more inclined to smile appreciatively at the perched castle and the lilting topography that carves up the very centre of the city each morning as I drift blearily up Leith Walk, one of the longest streets in Scotland, on the number 22. Though perhaps it is the stark transition from Leith to Edinburgh that wakes me up, jolts me to my senses and prepares me for my day. Leith, then, is another place altogether. Dragged up the Walk and into the body of Edinburgh in 1920 against the wishes of its inhabitants, Leith spills north from the old Boundary Bar like a soaked mutt shaking its coat next to your well-pressed yellow corduroys, dripping water on your brown brogues. Not for nothing does its motto, Persevere, still ring true to the good people of Leith. Indeed, the first thing the Edinburgher sees when alighting at the boundary is a sign stating ‘Welcome to Leith: Twinned with Rio de Janeiro.’ It’s also worth noting that Leith has an incredible history: a base from which Mary of Guise ruled as Regent for her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots; HQ for Cromwell during the reformation; and home of one of Scotland’s three Napoleonic Martello Towers.
One of Edinburgh’s most recent publicised and expensive projects has been the financial shenanigan that was the design and construction of the Scottish Parliament, after which we could have hoped for a hiatus. But no, we were offered the trams! A genius idea, reintroducing a tram system, dismantled sixty years ago, to the place with the best public transport system of the cities I’ve lived in this is highly subjective I know: London doesn’t have a system, just a series of painful experiences; Glasgow has a clockwork orange; and Amsterdam, (well, transport is not a big worry in the ‘Dam.)
Over and above the incredible tumult this caused our dear politicians, it drew the Edinburgher and the Leither together: Line 1 leaves Leith (Newhaven) and arrives in Edinburgh (Haymarket) sometime in 2011. I need not bore you with the pandemonium and perplexity caused in the hearts of our cultural ambassadors as they sweated over whether Princes Street may be shut during the festival this year, part of an eight month showdown. Currently, those intelligent enough to try to traverse the city on foot are shepherded through heras fencing at either end of the main drag along this most illustrious street, now eerily quiet. Leith Walk too has been struggling as shoppers hide indoors wondering whether the Tesco home delivery van will make it through the revised contra-flow.
So, we are united in our confusion about these interventions. Edinburgh seems more akin to a World Building Site at present, not quite the World Heritage Site we know and love. It is a brave and masterful decision by the new administration to take this legacy on, to drive it forward with such vigour, to see us driven demented within the warzone we inhabit. Our politicians are putting their all into this and those of us on the ground are feeling the attrition. But it’s a good lesson to step back for a moment, draw breath and see the bigger plan. I’ve lived with trams; they are clean, smooth, reliable and an elegant addition to a fantastic urban streetscape. Edinburgh will be the better for it and if it draws Leith and Edinburgh together, albeit ideologically, then that is just fine with me.
The single most impressive tram journey I have had, after having lived in Amsterdam, (which has an exemplary tram system and introduced a whole new fleet of trams overnight with a shrug of its light shoulders) was in fact in Roma. The number 3 goes from Termini into the funereal district of San Lorezo, stopping dead outside Tramtram, a true blessing disguised as a trattoria. Unburdened by the tourist, stuffed with locals, it was every week long Roman’s dream. I just hope my Edinburgh tram stops outside my favourite Edinburgh eatery but I may be waiting a while.