High summer in Edinburgh: hard hat, hi-vis vest, steel toe-cap boots. Not a festival fashion tip, though it could be, but the essentials for a first glimpse of a hidden site in the city centre now being cleared for a 1,000 seat concert hall, the Scottish capital’s first dedicated new venue for music in a century. To add “state of the art” is redundant. Designed by David Chipperfield Architects (Turner Contemporary, Margate; the Hepworth, Wakefield, the Neues Museum, Berlin), with acoustics by Nagata, involved with all the most enviable new concert halls (Philharmonie, Paris; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles), the ingredients are world class.
This is Nagata’s first UK project. With so much gloom about music elsewhere in Britain – read the damning report from the ISM (Independent Society of Musicians), published last week, on the impact of Brexit – it’s impossible not to be excited at the building’s ambition: a flexible, mid-sized hall to complement Edinburgh’s beloved Queen’s Hall and Usher Hall. Named after the charitable trust that is the main donor, the Dunard Centre will open in 2027. That same year, the long awaited National Centre for Music, scaled back from its original scheme but still with an emphasis on music education, choirs and orchestras in the locality, will open at the former Royal High School, the distinctive Greek revival building on Calton Hill.
