Edinburgh has some fine school buildings, more of which I will share with you later, and this gorgeous building at the bottom of Calton Hill used to house The Royal High School. The Royal High used to be an independent school, but upon joining the state sector in the 1960s, it upped sticks and moved out to the suburbs. It remains, however, the school with the longest history in Edinburgh with a foundation date of 1128 (not this buidling though). This building was renovated inside and was fitted out with a parliamentary debating chamber, ready to house the Scottish Parliament after the 1979 referendum. Well, though a majority of Scots who voted at the time voted in favour, the referendum was lost due to a stipulation that a certain percentage of registered voters had to vote in favour. By the time the second referendum came around in 1997, this building had fallen out of favour with the ruling Labour party, seeing it as a nationalist symbol. They preferred to spend more vast sums of money on the new building with the lovely thinking pods! So, this building still lies under-used although there is talk of turning it into a photography museum - I'm sure all you daily photo bloggers will be pleased to hear that.
8 comments:
I vote for photography museum!!!! Keep us updated on the progress of this magnificient building , ok?
Beautiful building.
Awesome indeed.
I'd be happy to keep you informed fotoaddict. it is a great building and it's sad that it's used for a few council meetings and that's about it.
A photography museum would be a great choice I think!! It also has a bit of a theater for me...
What a great building. Wow. Very impressive!
A museum would be a good idea for a build this grand.
Denver - i taught for 2 years on JET in a small town in rural Wakayama-ken. then I moved to Osaka and spent three years working in Universities and doing coprorate English teaching there.
i hope they do go for the photography museum - would be a fitting use for a well photgraphed building.
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