June 13 2016

Collective Gallery have obtained a £300k grant from Edinburgh World Heritage to convert and restore the Calton Hill City Observatory to form a visual arts space by the end of 2017.

The funding will ease progress of a Collective Architecture helmed makeover of the William Playfair designed buildings which wills see the cluster of astronomical buildings opened up to the public in their entirety.

Adam Wilkinson, director of Edinburgh World Heritage, remarked: “These buildings are of national and international significance, and it is especially appropriate that they will be open to the public next year – the 250th anniversary of the first New Town. We have invested significant funds in the conservation of other monuments on Calton Hill over the last ten years and are pleased to support these works which form the final piece of the jigsaw’.

The £3.5m project is now in its final stage of fundraising and will marry contemporary art with historic scientific and astronomical instruments – including a time ball in Nelson’s Column activated by electrical pulses from the observatory clock and visible from the port.

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