Edinburgh City Council has given planning permission for a new music
venue, Dunard Centre, to be built east of St Andrew Square, in the city’s
Georgian New Town. The new performance venue will sit behind the listed Dundas
House, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s historic home, and include a 1000-seat
auditorium and a 200-seat studio for performances and rehearsing. It will host
a wide variety of musical shows and will be a permanent home for the Scottish
Chamber Orchestra.
The design relates to the existing architecture of the New Town in both order and materiality; the expression of a base, middle and crown, found on other neoclassical buildings, is picked up by the composition of the venue’s massing. A metal-clad dome completes the crown of the building, announcing its public nature and aligning with the other civic buildings across the city.