Appleton Tower

Appleton Tower is a tower block in Edinburgh, Scotland, owned by the University of Edinburgh.

When the University developed the George Square area in the 1960s a huge swathe of Georgian Edinburgh was demolished, leading to accusations of cultural vandalism and megalomania. The Appleton Tower was intended as the first phase of the proposed interlinked Fundamental Science buildings, in a development that would have covered much of the South Side (p66, fig.22). The Tower was named in posthumous honour of physicist Sir Edward Appleton, the Principal who oversaw the development from vision into concrete reality of the 1960s Edinburgh University buildings around George Square.

In the post-war period, vociferous support for the George Square scheme, and impassioned opposition to it, were so intense as to elevate it to a national debate. Thus, many were glad that some of Appleton's vision was not completed (p. 74).

Designed by Alan Reiach, Eric Hall and Partners, the building included seven floors of laboratory accommodation, surmounting a double-height circulation concourse, with various facilities provided in its podium. A block containing five lecture theatres clad in conglomerate concrete and pebble-imbedded slabs is attached to its southern side. The tower’s completion in 1966 created a symbolic manifestation of Appleton’s vision for integration of the arts and sciences, with twin towers, David Hume (Arts) and Appleton (Sciences), dominating the University's Central area.

An associated teaching block for east George Square, and a Mathematics and Physics building for the ‘car park site’ on north Crichton Street, were intended to interlock at this sector. The latter project was relocated to King’s Buildings in the 1960s, resulting in the James Clerk Maxwell Building, and the succeeding project for the site, the Dental Hospital and School, was abandoned for lack of funding. The Tower was left isolated - and without a proper entrance, as this had been intended to be via connection to further construction.

Appleton Tower was built to allow first-year science students to be taught in the Central Area (p. 59). It has five lecture theatres, together accommodating around 1,200 students, and several smaller seminar and tutorial rooms. The upper floors originally housed teaching laboratories, which, with the development of more modern facilities at King's Buildings, had become outdated by the end of the 20th century.

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