Unfinished Ambitions: Festival Visions and Edinburgh’s Cultural Infrastructure

With the 2025 Festival season already underway, it feels timely to reflect on the bold and often overlooked visions that once set out to reshape Edinburgh’s cultural heart.

In the years following World War II, Edinburgh stood at a crossroads, a city scarred by conflict but eager to reimagine its future through the power of culture. The launch of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) in 1947, under the guidance of Rudolf Bing and a group of visionary civic leaders, was more than just a bold artistic experiment. It was an act of hope, a reaching out across borders in the spirit of healing and renewal. From its very first season, the festival resonated. Musicians, actors, and dancers travelled from near and far, drawn to Edinburgh’s faded grandeur and its promise of something new. The city’s theatres and concert halls, many of them showing their age, suddenly became the stage for a cultural revival unlike anything Scotland had seen before.

By the 1950s, however, it was clear that this growing cultural momentum needed more than temporary fixes. Lasting infrastructure and serious investment were essential to support what was fast becoming one of the most ambitious arts festivals in Europe. Among the boldest responses was the 1957 Edinburgh Festival Centre, a sweeping modernist vision by architects Michael Laird, Douglas Laird, and Alan Reiach, designed to anchor the festival’s ambitions in a new civic heart.

When it was unveiled through a series of scale models at the Edinburgh Architectural Association, the proposed Festival Centre promised a dramatic transformation of the city’s cultural landscape. The plan reimagined the old Caley railway goods yard off Lothian Road as a bustling new district centred around the arts. The design was unapologetically modern: two 15-storey towers flanking the Usher Hall, a 200-room hotel, a 1,500-seat conference hall, a department store, and even a 250-space underground car park. Writing in The Scotsman, A. J. Arthur described it as a “highly beneficial” step toward a more modern civic identity. However, he also acknowledged the growing public unease about sacrificing historic views and architectural continuity. The vision reflected developments in forward-thinking European cities, such as Rotterdam, where modernism was embraced as a symbol of post-war renewal. Yet in Edinburgh, the clash between ambition and conservation proved difficult to reconcile. Beset by planning hurdles, budget constraints, and vocal opposition to demolitions in the World Heritage heart of the city, the project never moved beyond the model stage. It remains one of Edinburgh’s great ‘what ifs’.

Yet the 1957 proposal was not the first radical attempt to reshape the city’s cultural infrastructure. In fact, one of the most ambitious, and largely forgotten, schemes emerged almost a decade earlier.

In 1949, two young Scots, architect John Netherby Graham and town planner H. A. Rendel Govan, unveiled an unofficial vision that would have dramatically transformed the heart of the Old Town. Their plan proposed demolishing the entire Grassmarket and replacing it with a monumental Festival District designed to meet the growing demands of the newly launched Edinburgh International Festival.

This bold reimagining featured a 3,500-seat opera house, a 1,500-seat concert theatre, a 700-seat playhouse, exhibition galleries, an open-air amphitheatre, a music school, a vast restaurant capable of seating 2,000 people, landscaped gardens, and a multi-storey car park. The scale of the proposal was striking, not just in its physical footprint, but in its confidence that Edinburgh could, and should, rival the cultural capitals of Europe.

Contemporary press coverage gave the proposal serious attention. One editorial even claimed that the Grassmarket “would not suffer from redevelopment,” reflecting a mid-century willingness to sacrifice historic fabric in pursuit of modernity and cultural prestige. The scheme also mirrored ideas in the 1949 Abercrombie and Plumstead Civic Survey, which proposed sweeping improvements across Edinburgh, including new cultural centres both at the Grassmarket and in the eastern New Town.

Though never officially commissioned or adopted, the Grassmarket plan underscores the ambitions that shaped post-war Edinburgh. Like so many proposals of the era, it was eventually eclipsed by heritage concerns, planning resistance, and lack of funding. Yet in its scale and audacity, it speaks to a moment when Edinburgh dared to dream of a future shaped as much by the arts as by architecture.

Also in 1949, the official civic survey authored by Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead envisioned even broader redevelopment. Their Edinburgh Civic Survey and Plan called for the clearance of slum tenements in the eastern New Town, including St James Square, and proposed a comprehensive redevelopment strategy encompassing housing, schools, roads, and cultural infrastructure.

Their vision included a split-site cultural centre: one set of facilities near Usher Hall, and another near St James Square, suggesting a long-term ambition to embed the Festival not just in one neighbourhood but across the fabric of the city. Like the Grassmarket proposal, their ideas reflected post-war ideals of civic progress and cultural renewal. St James Square and its surrounding streets were later designated a Comprehensive Development Area in 1960, leading to widespread demolitions between 1960 and 1965. Although these clearances were intended to prepare the site for future cultural projects, such as the long-planned Castle Terrace opera house, no such project ever came to fruition.

Instead, over the decades that followed, commercial and residential schemes replaced the civic and cultural ambitions. The area eventually evolved into the St James Quarter, completed in 2021, a mixed-use development notable for its retail, residential, and leisure components, but without any dedicated theatre or performance space. The opera house, like so many Festival-era visions, was quietly shelved.

The Festival Centre was not alone. Other plans, such as a long-discussed National Opera House behind the Usher Hall, also faltered. That site was eventually given over to Saltire Court, a 1990s office development often viewed as a missed cultural opportunity. Nonetheless, parts of the area were reshaped: the Sheraton Hotel and financial buildings replaced the goods yard, and Festival Square, though modest in scale, stands as a quiet tribute to those original aspirations. Collectively, these unbuilt projects reveal a more profound and ongoing tension in Edinburgh’s post-war story: the pull between modernist reinvention and a deeply held commitment to preserving the city’s historic fabric.

The significance of these unrealised dreams becomes clearer when placed alongside Edinburgh’s global reputation as a cultural capital. Each August, the city is transformed into a vast stage, drawing performers and audiences from every corner of the globe. The Edinburgh International Festival, with its world-class programming of classical music, opera, theatre, and dance, has welcomed legendary artists since its earliest days. Running parallel to it, and born in the same year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has grown into the world’s largest arts festival. In 2019 alone, more than 59,000 performances were staged by artists representing 63 countries. Its chaotic, open-access model has become a springboard for careers and a blueprint for similar festivals in cities from Adelaide to New York. Together, these two festivals have done more than shape Edinburgh, they have helped reinvent what an international arts festival can be.

And yet, for all their global stature, Edinburgh’s festivals still operate on infrastructure that is, in many ways, cobbled together. Unlike Salzburg, where the Festspielhaus offers a purpose-built hub, or Avignon, which utilises the grand Palais des Papes, Edinburgh relies on a patchwork of borrowed spaces: school halls, church crypts, university lecture theatres, and forgotten corners of the city. It’s a tradition born out of pragmatism, and part of what gives the festivals their unique texture. But the cracks show. The failure to deliver the 1957 Festival Centre and the continued absence of a dedicated cultural district leave a lingering void.

Recent challenges have only deepened the strain. The 2008 Fringe ticketing system collapse severely disrupted sales and undermined confidence. The withdrawal from the EU has introduced visa complications, making it more difficult for international artists to attend. And as accommodation prices soar, the ideal of a truly accessible, global festival grows increasingly difficult to sustain, particularly for artists from the Global South, whose participation is crucial to the Fringe’s inclusive ethos.

These pressures are particularly acute for Fringe performers. In 2025, new research indicates that the average cost of mounting a show at the Fringe ranges from £6,000 to £12,000, with larger productions incurring expenses of £20,000 or more. Performers face mounting accommodation costs, often £2,000 to £4,000 for a modest stay during August, as well as additional expenses for venue hire, technical staff, PR, flyers, and registration fees. Although some performers manage to keep costs down by using free or donation-based venues, most find themselves barely breaking even. The rising price of taking a show to the Fringe has become a serious concern, particularly for early-career artists and those travelling from abroad. Critics have called the financial burden “prohibitively high,” and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The long-held image of the Fringe as a springboard for fresh talent sits uneasily alongside today’s economic reality, where opportunity often hinges on personal means or external backing.

Yet even amid these challenges, there are signs of progress. In July 2025, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society announced plans to transform its headquarters at 6 Infirmary Street into a multi-purpose venue for year-round use. The refurbishment will create performance and workshop spaces, a welcoming community hub, and a platform for local artists, marking an important shift towards permanence and inclusion. In a city where cultural infrastructure has often lagged behind ambition, the project represents a tangible and timely investment in the Fringe’s future.

Meanwhile, the long-vacant Old Royal High School on Calton Hill has found a new life as the future home of St Mary’s Music School. This marks the end of a decades-long debate over the building’s fate and ensures that this iconic neoclassical site will remain a place of learning and performance, rooted in public cultural use.

The Dunard Centre, a £75 million concert hall designed by David Chipperfield Architects and Reiach and Hall, also promises to deliver world-class infrastructure behind Dundas House. Featuring a 1,000-seat auditorium with Nagata Acoustics’ cutting-edge design, the Centre has secured £25 million from government sources, £35 million from the Dunard Fund, and £30 million in recent philanthropy. However, its location within Edinburgh’s UNESCO World Heritage Site has sparked debate, with the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland criticising its “excessive scale” and St James Quarter developers raising concerns about lorry access and views. A March 2025 delay, caused by the departure of contractor Sir Robert McAlpine, has pushed its opening to 2029, echoing the city’s long history of infrastructural setbacks. In the meantime, grassroots venues, such as converted warehouses, pop-up stages, and community-led spaces, continue to sustain Edinburgh’s year-round cultural vibrancy.

The story of the Festival Centre and the many ambitious projects that followed is not one of outright failure. It’s a chapter that remains unfinished. Despite the city’s fragmented infrastructure, Edinburgh’s festivals have thrived, powered by ingenuity, resilience, and a remarkable ability to make the most of what’s available. However, as cities everywhere begin to rethink how culture and community can coexist and grow side by side, Edinburgh faces its moment of reckoning. The transformation of the Fringe’s headquarters, alongside the long-awaited Dunard Centre, presents a real opportunity to turn decades of aspiration into something lasting. As another August unfolds, the need for permanent, purpose-built cultural spaces no longer feels like a luxury; it feels essential, not just for today’s performers and audiences, but for the generations who will carry this creative legacy forward.

Sources and Further Reading

Arthur, A. J. (1957). “Proposed Edinburgh Festival Centre.” The Scotsman, 15 August 1957. National Library of Scotland Archives
Bartie, A. (2013). The Edinburgh Festivals: Culture and Society in Post-War Britain. Edinburgh University Press
BOP Consulting (2020, 2023). Measuring the Impact of the Festivals. Festivals Edinburgh. www.festivalsedinburgh.com
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society (2025). “Pivotal Moment as We Receive Keys for Our New Permanent Home – with 12-Month Refurbishment to Begin.” www.edfringe.com
Edinburgh Live (2025). “Fringe to Transform Headquarters at Infirmary Street.” Edinburgh Live, 5 February 2025. www.edinburghlive.co.uk
Edinburgh Live (2025). “Edinburgh’s Forgotten Plans for a Festival Centre off Castle Terrace.” Edinburgh Live, 8 May 2025. www.edinburghlive.co.uk
Gold, J. R., & Gold, M. M. (2020). Festival Cities: Culture, Planning and Urban Life. Routledge
Harvie, J. (2005). Staging the UK. Manchester University Press
IMPACT Scotland. Dunard Centre Project Updates. https://impact.dunardcentre.co.uk
Indeed Flex (2024). “Fringe Performers Face Living Costs of £3,600 but Can Earn Off Stage.” www.indeedflex.co.uk
McCarthy, M. (2007). “Festival Architecture: Temporality and Cultural Identity in Edinburgh.” Architectural Review, 222(1330), 42–47
Royal High School Preservation Trust (2023–2025). The National Centre for Music: Project Vision and Updates. www.rhspt.org
Simpson & Brown Architects. Old Royal High School Conservation Plan. www.simpsonandbrown.co.uk
Scottish Construction Now (2023). “Green Light for Royal High School Music Hall Plans.” www.scottishconstructionnow.com
Wainwright, O. (2021–2025). Various articles on cultural infrastructure. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com

Additional references on the 1949 proposals and civic redevelopment:

Abercrombie, P. and Plumstead, D. (1949). Edinburgh Civic Survey and Plan. London: HMSO
Pollock, V. and Holmes, C. (2017). “Edinburgh’s Unbuilt ‘Opera House’, 1960–75.” Architectural Heritage, 28(1), 93–108. https://doi.org/10.3366/arch.2017.0084
Sceptical Scot (2019). “New Brutalism in St James Square: #MoultriesHill Part 2.” Sceptical Scot, 19 September. https://sceptical.scot/2019/09/new-brutalism-in-st-james-square-moultrieshill-part-2
Threadinburgh (2023). “The Thread About a 1949 Plan to Demolish the Grassmarket and Replace It with a Festival District.” Threadinburgh, 22 April. https://threadinburgh.scot/2023/04/22/the-thread-about-a-1949-plan-to-demolish-the-grassmarket-and-replace-it-with-a-festival-district
University of Edinburgh (n.d.). “Opera House 1c.” Research Explorer. https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/files/36629817/Opera_House_1c.pdf

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