Edinburgh New Town
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Edinburgh’s New Town, built between 1767 and 1850, is one of Europe’s finest neoclassical neighbourhoods, a triumph of town planning, with UNESCO World Heritage status. But the importance of the New Town goes far beyond the quality of its architecture. Nearly 250 years after it was built, today it is not only a carefully conserved Georgian neighbourhood but a vibrant community in which people from all walks of life thrive in harmonious surroundings. Those include over 7,000 residential properties of enormous variety, and its shops, schools, pubs, restaurants and community facilities, which contribute to its unique quality of life and attract visitors from around the world.
This book celebrates the history and achievements of the New Town. Through photos, drawings, historic maps and aerial photography, the authors explore the New Town’s origins in the philiosophy of the Enlightenment and the role of politics, land ownership, finance, design and materials in its development. This is a friendly and accessible introduction to the exteriors and interiors of its buildings, with a walking tour included, drawing on both historic maps and modern satellite images. It links the New Town to current debates on urban architecture, concluding that it is an inspiring model for new communities around the world.
This is a book for the passionate, knowledgeable lover of Georgian architecture, but equally for the casual visitor who wants to get to know the New Town better.
Michael Carley was previously a Fellow of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He has had six books published during his career. Robert Dalziel is an architect who, for over twenty years, was a main board director of Reid Architecture (now 3DReid). Pat Dargan has been an architect and planner for twenty years. He recently retired as a lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He lives between County Wicklow in Ireland and London. Simon Laird is an architect in private practice in Edinburgh. He focuses on accommodating new uses within existing buildings, a phenomenon that could be said to define the history of New Town.