On a cold February day, the wind howls round the exposed top of the hill, blowing through the Grecian columns of the acropolis, around other monuments and the observatory, modelled appropriately on the “Temple of the Four Winds” and contributing to the city’s name as the Athens of the North.   

Calton Hill in Edinburgh is dominated by the silhouette of one gable of the Acropolis.  In Athens, the original acropolis has become a beautiful ruin through neglect, destruction and decay; in Edinburgh, it was never finished.  Designed by the architect William Henry Playfair as the National Monument in memory of those who died in the Napoleonic Wars, work started in 1822 but funding ran out.  Playfair also designed the nearby monument to the Scottish philosopher Dugald Stewart, completed in 1831 and modelled on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, and the old City Observatory designed in 1818 with its four wings inspired by a Greek Temple of the Four Winds.     

Also here is a castellated tower built between 1807 and 1815 to commemorate the victory and Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar and a Grecian monument to Playfair himself.  

Once at the leading edge of scientific discovery, the City Observatory is soon to have a new life for the arts organisation Collective at the leading edge of contemporary art, while also having new interpretative facilities for the telescopes and astronomical instruments.  The restoration of these historic buildings will be balanced by contemporary additions designed by Collective Architects, new landscaping, a new underground gallery space and restaurant and a viewing gallery, after which the current, and successful, gallery space and café will disappear.  Hopefully the industrial lighting which has appeared on the hill will also be removed and replaced with something that is more sympathetic to a world heritage site and also respects the symmetry of the Observatory entrance.  

While fundraising continues, the aim is to complete the project in the second half of 2017, adding to the growing number of contemporary galleries in the area, with the Ingleby Gallery 10 minutes away adjacent to Waverley Station and the Fruitmarket Gallery at the other side of the station.