FURTHER to Rosemary Goring's column this week ("Capital continues to lose ground", The Herald, February 2), I wish to reassure your readers that the National Galleries are extremely mindful of both the aesthetic and recreational worth of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens and are in complete agreement with Ms Goring on this.
The proposed extension in the Gardens, undertaken to increase the display space for the nation's display of Scottish art, measures just 5 x 98 metres. This narrow strip is currently a steep grassed bank which, under our proposals, will be translated into new public space above the gallery, providing a much more generous terrace between the Playfair Steps and Princes Street.
We are keen that our proposals should enhance and improve the Gardens, and to that end they include a plan to elegantly reshape the paths and steps leading down from Princes Street and thereby provide much better disabled access to this wonderful public space which is such a key area at the heart of our historic capital city.
Michael Clarke,
Director,
Scottish National Gallery,
The Mound,
Edinburgh.
IT'S the silly season again when design magazine Urban Realm awards its offensive Plook of the Plinth award for Scotland's most architecturally dismal town ("Row over gardens plan sees Granite City named worst place in urban poll", The Herald, February 5).
May I take this opportunity to award Plook of the Press award to said magazine?
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road,
Kilbirnie.
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