Tim Cornwell: Modern need not mean monstrous

THE problem with Edinburgh's architecture, it has been said, is that there's too much caviar. People get so used to it they chuck it out.

Take a walk along Jeffrey Street, say, and revel in the Greek revival beauty of the Royal High School (1825) on Calton Hill opposite, though the city has struggled for years to find a use for it, or argue over the merits over the blackened monolith of the Scottish Executive building at St Andrew's House (1939).

Then curse the sheer ugliness of the Jury's Inn Hotel (1970, though refurbished much later) or wish the new Edinburgh City Council building (2007) had been kept one or two storeys lower for the sightlines.

The city's classic streets and views, and how they've been treated, are inspiring and infuriating. Rather than moan over what we've lost, particularly since the Second World War, we should make the best of what's replaced it.

That at least is the message of a survey of the best buildings erected in the city since 1945. Edinburgh's Post War Listed Buildings – no prizes for snappy titles, but plenty of food for thought – was published this week by Edinburgh City Council and Historic Scotland, on print and on the web. It documents 55 buildings, 13 with category A listing, 32 with B, and ten the less restrictive C rating.

The knee-jerk reaction to the buildings presented here is to ask how these concrete and glass constructions can ever be rated worth preserving. Buildings erected in the last 30 years require particular historic or archaeological qualities to get any protected status.

But there are actually very few monsters here, and some surprisingly nice stuff: from a shelter in Princes Street Gardens, to three telephone exchanges, from the Royal Commonwealth Swimming Pool to the parabolic curves of the George Watson's College Music School. They are part of the city's everyday fabric and it's a reminder to take a second look.

There are other less positive lists you could make of Edinburgh architecture. There are buildings that are too expensive to demolish – perhaps like the Appleton Tower, part of the Edinburgh University's infamous developments of George Square. Or buildings that we long to get rid of, but still worry that what replaces them could be even bigger, and possibly uglier, like the St James Centre.

Or buildings that age badly, or at least need a good cleaning – like the National Museum of Scotland tower building, whose orangy stone facing is getting grubbier by the year.

It's always reassuring to remember that the worst architectural excesses in Edinburgh were carried out by its finest minds, at Edinburgh University. Its campus includes what must be a leading contender for the city's most beautiful single building – the Old College quad.

But just as Liverpool University carved up large areas of Georgian housing to construct several unlovely monsters, so Edinburgh dismantled George Square. Three modern buildings it erected there – with the notable exception of Appleton Tower, after protests – now have B listed status, but they're also a dreadful reminder of why planners and architects have to be restrained.

Some buildings may always be judged on what they replaced. You can argue all day that the New Club (1969) is "beautifully composed", and its balcony has some of the best views in the capital, but it replaced an Italianate 19th-century predecessor on Princes Street. The response must be to learn the lesson and move on: the same voices denouncing these carbuncles today were probably calling for the bulldozers to go in in the 1960s.

The university is also featured on the list. Adam House, on Chambers Street – "C Venues" in the Fringe – is one of the biggest surprises. A passer-by would register the building as another Edinburgh classic, maybe from the early 19th century.

But the neo-classical facade was designed by the modernist architect William Kininmonth and built only in 1954.

Dismissed as an "ill conceived throwback", Adam House was defended by Kininmonth as "a visual reminder that the university is a storehouse of learning".

Fifty years on it is a strikingly successful example of architecture that matches but does not mock its neighbours.