Leader: In the Old Town, choose your words carefully

Published on Saturday 3 December 2011 00:00

WHEN in the company of architects and planners, never say “pastiche”. Deployment of the word has sparked an almighty row that threatens to derail progress on a major development in the centre of Edinburgh’s Old Town.

Plans for a £35 million hotel, intended to fill an ugly charred hole left by a fire in the Cowgate nine years ago, have been thrown into disarray by Edinburgh city council planners and, predictably, Historic Scotland. They criticised period architectural features designed to match historic South Bridge buildings facing the site as (gasp) “pastiche”.

Jansons, the developer caught in the middle, has been asked to “simplify” the proposals.

Cue pistols at dawn. The Edinburgh World Heritage organisation has threatened to withdraw support, while others have decried modifications to vital mouldings and cornices as “flat and lifeless”. Artist Hugh Buchanan has likened the council changes to replacing “the broken leg of a Chippendale chair with something you had found at MFI”.

Establishing the correct vernacular is near impossible, because the building straddles two sharply different environments – the Cowgate and South Bridge. Anywhere else, such a dispute would spark mild amusement. But this is Edinburgh. And “pastiche” just will not do.

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RON URQ.

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 12:24 PM

I OWN A 3 YEAR OLD COACHMAN PASTICHE IN IMMACULATE CONDITION, EDINBURGH CITY COUNCIL ARE WELCOME TO BUY IT, THE PRICE IS £100,000 RISING REGULARLY, A FACTOR OF TWO DAILY SEEMS ATTRACTIVE

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