Edinburgh's New Town and the Enlightenment Richard Rodger

Edinburgh's New Town and the Enlightenment Richard Rodger Edinburgh is internationally renowned in architectural circles for its classical 'New Town'. This area, physically separated from the medieval or Old Town by a stretch of water called the 'Nor Loch', was developed in the century following the royal approval in 1767 of James Craig's 'Plan of the New Streets and Squares intended for the Capital of North Britain.' Using the phrase 'Capital of North Britain' appealed to an emerging Scottish identity within the developing British nation state yet carefully positioned Edinburgh as supportive of the Hanoverians just twenty years after the defeat of Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. Indeed, the street names – Hanover, Frederick, Princes (referring to the male heirs) and George Street – reflected the deference shown by Craig and the Edinburgh Town Council to the Hanoverian succession and naming streets Rose and Thistle linked English and Scottish national emblems. Many other New Town street names were also English – London, York, Northumberland, Albany and Cumberland, an English name reviled amongst supporters of the Stuart cause. Jamaica and India Streets connected Edinburgh to the British empire. Cleverly, the New Town faced in two directions: deferential towards the British monarchy and as a prompt to an increasingly confident Scottish national identity. The building of the New Town proceeded relatively quickly from east to west along the quadrilateral defined by St. Andrew's Square, Princes Street, Charlotte Square and Queen Street so that by 1820 most of the area presented here was completed or at least underway. Further extensions to east, west and north took another fifty years to complete and formed no part of the original conception of James Craig. Though many commentators have claimed that the New Town was an early form of town planning and thus a decisive move away from the irregular forms of medieval and early modern street lay-outs, this is an oversimplified view. In fact, the geometric forms described by the streets owed more to the strict enforcement of clauses in legal documents governing building development in Scotland and to the associated potential for capital accumulation. The architectural contrast between the Old Town with its narrow closes and wynds, steep gradients associated with the strategic position of the initial settlement, and high rise tenements of seven or even ten stories contrasted starkly with the architectural characteristics of the New Town. Here, neo-classical proportions provided expressions of linear thought, order and rationality and were represented in the Georgian landscape of New Town Edinburgh. The geometrical shapes of squares and crescents, evident in the diagram, represented a distinct break with previous building styles and forms. In the Old Town, social classes had co-existed in the high rise tenements; in the New Town, a more homogeneous upper-middle and middle class suburb was created. The Edinburgh New Town plan was inscribed 'To His Sacred Majesty King George III. The Magnificent Patron of Every Polite and Liberal Art.' However, the New Town plan was much more than an astute political document. It also reflected the confident European credentials of Edinburgh as the centre of a semi-autonomous country with distinct judicial, financial, ecclesiastical and educational systems. Located at the epicentre of this Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh experienced two separate though related strands of cultural development. One was the refined development in artistic and literary endeavours that also found expression throughout Europe where 'polite' and 'liberal' became synonyms for all that was considered cultured, educated, intellectual, and tolerant of alternative ideas. Just as architectural forms were rendered to simple, clean and logical lines, as in the Edinburgh New Town, so this rationality was developed in practical arenas - science, medicine, and political economy. However, the status quo was challenged in a second, related characteristic, an intense rejuvenation not just in poetry, prose, ballads, and painting but also in engineering and applied science. Scottish artists and inventors revelled in the local and the particular, and extolled the virtue of a distinctively national identity. Confidently, and through different media, Scots expressed their identity through local history, song, poems and philosophy, and this was reflected in a welter of publications. On average, 165 books were published annually in Scotland in the years 1750-1790; between 1790 and 1810 this figure had risen to 265 per annum and by 1815 to 565 titles. Ideas that challenged thestatus quo were increasingly embraced in Scotland, and in particular in Edinburgh. Pluralism was acceptable, in government, in the arts, and in architecture. The contrast between the ancient skyline of the Old Town with its appeal to the Scottish vernacular and the modernity of the New Town embodied these core values. .

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