Architect proposes Princes Street Gardens for Edinburgh art gallery

The Herald Scotland

2 days ago

National Galleries of Scotland currently houses its modern art collection in two grand buildings in the West End and says it has 'no plans' to relocate the gallery.
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The speculative proposals show galleries along the length of the east gardens from Waverley Bridge, connecting to the existing concourse of the National Gallery and Royal Scottish Academy. A rooftop putting green - reviving a feature from the gardens some 30 years ago - is also pictured.
According to Richard Murphy Architects, the wall length on the new gallery 'would exceed the combined equivalent of Modern One and Two'.
Speaking to The Herald, Mr Murphy said: 'I'm trying to be helpful. I'm trying to put forward ideas that would benefit the National Gallery and benefit Edinburgh,' adding that the plan would 'correct a mistake' made when the modern art collection was moved from Inverleith House in the Royal Botanic Garden 40 years ago.
'What I used to love about it in the Botanical Garden is people just wandered into this building and found themselves looking at modern art,' he said. 'It wasn't just the cognoscenti who wanted to go and look at modern art; they were there because it happened to be in the gardens and it was another thing to do.
'Moving it to a very specific place like Belford Road, it really only attracts the people who want to go and see modern art. There's nothing wrong with that, but I thought it was accidentally inclusive in the Botanical Gardens. And I think we'd get that back if we put it into Princes Street Gardens, particularly from Waverley Bridge. People would just wander in; it's free.'
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Earlier this year he published a speculative vision for a revamp of Princes Street with wider pavements, fewer bus stops and Frederick Street junction to traffic, which was met with mixed reaction.
Murphy also designed plans for a £60m 'temple of film' in Festival Square backed by the Centre for the Moving Image (CMI), which previously ran the city's Filmhouse and International Film Festival. However, heritage watchdog the Cockburn Association raised concerns the eye-shaped building would 'undermine the character and potential of an existing civic space' and the idea was then shelved after CMI went into administration in 2022.
Discussing his latest designs, he said: 'The interesting thing is it connects at two ends; it connects into the existing foyer between the National Gallery and Royal Scottish Gallery which was done about 20 years ago.
'But the really important thing is it connects to Waverley Bridge. And that is a tourist and everybody else honeypot. That is a really busy part of Edinburgh. You'd be able to walk straight down the steps and straight into the Modern Art Gallery.
Murphy's vision for a 'temple of film' in Festival Square was shelved (Image: Richard Murphy Architects) 'It doesn't need a clever person to say the numbers of people going to the Modern Art Gallery would increase by tenfold.
'I think the problem would be too many people, not too few. It would be so inviting and it's right there. That would be an amazing thing to recapture which is what it used to be like. I'm a great believer in trying to make things inclusive if you can.'
Murphy added: 'We've got two buildings people don't go to that are very expensive to maintain and very expensive to curate.
'They just don't have the visitor numbers, it's just that little bit too far out of the centre of town to attract tourists. And of course, a lot of people who get counted as visitors to the gallery are not going to the gallery at all, they're going to the restaurant because that's a very popular restaurant.'
The latest official figures show there were just under 300,000 visitors to the two modern art galleries in 2022-23, compared to an average of 527,000 in the five years preceding the pandemic.
Murphy said the gallery's wall space 'would exceed the combined equivalent of Modern One and Two' (Image: Richard Murphy Architects) National Galleries of Scotland director Anne Lyden warned in January the organisation was at "crisis point" unless it managed to raise £40m over the next 10 years to address the condition of its buildings. She said 'very palatable options' including closing one of the galleries altogether would be considered without additional funding from the Scottish Government.
'There's a fact of life that they've got a problem,' Murphy said, adding that with the help of Savills estate agents, he worked out the development value of Modern One, in the former premises of the John Watson's Institution on Belford Road, and Modern Two, in the former Dean Orphan Hospital on the other side of the road, would 'just about pay for the whole thing'.
The award-winning architect, who was behind the renovation of Edinburgh's Fruitmarket gallery in 1994 and designed the Dunfermline Carnegie Museum and Art Galleries, said: 'I've designed a few art galleries, I know the basics.
'It seems to me if they got the development value right out of Belford Road, they'd probably have to spend a bit of money - but not much - to make it happen. Obviously, you've got to get the City Council on board because it's their gardens, but I would have thought it's a huge improvement to the garden.
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'It seems to be a win-win situation, and there's still plenty of room for the Christmas Markets.'
Responding, however, a spokesperson for the National Galleries of Scotland dismissed the proposal.
They said: 'Richard Murphy Architects has created these speculative proposals without consulting the National Galleries of Scotland. Their concept does not align with our vision for the future and has not been created at our request.
'We have no plans to build in East Princes Street Gardens, to relocate the Modern galleries or to create a Photographic Gallery adjacent to the Portrait gallery. We do not plan to meet with Richard Murphy Architects.'
They said the focus was currently on their plans for a new cultural centre and visitor attraction at Granton Waterfront, The Art Works, which it describes as an 'urgently needed, world-class and innovative art store and community space for North Edinburgh residents and people of all ages to discover'.
National Galleries of Scotland's plans for The Art Works, Granton (Image: National Galleries of Scotland) Work was previously due to commence on site last year, however, now 20 months after securing planning permission, the National Galleries has admitted that it does not have the 'vital' finance in place to allow work to start on what it has described as a 'world-class home for more than 120,000 works of art," The Herald revealed this week.
The current estimated costs of realising the vision for the project have not been disclosed by the National Galleries, which insists it is still pursuing the project on the same scale as the scheme which received planning permission in November 2023.
The spokesperson added: 'We're doing everything we can to secure funding for The Art Works. Our aim is to make art work for everyone, and we want to give people more access to art by opening this amazing new space in Granton.'