Amy Clarke

The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh have long been a popular destination, but the sense of uncontrollable inundation by visitors is a phenomenon of recent decades. While many have claimed the tourist boom is positive and to be further encouraged, residents have decried the loss of their city’s soul. The debate about ‘over-tourism’ in Edinburgh has become a common topic in the local press: the pro-tourism side argues that the city is a living, evolving entity that cannot be locked in a museum case, while the anti-tourism campaigners allege that Edinburgh is quickly falling victim to ‘Disneyfication’.

This threat of a loss of ‘authenticity’ is particularly important in the context of Edinburgh’s historic built landscape, as the Old and New Towns precincts have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. They were listed because of the global significance of ‘a remarkable blend of the two urban phenomena: the organic medieval growth and 18th and 19th century town planning’ (UNESCO, 1995). Indeed, Edinburgh’s distinct townscape and architectural appearance is a significant factor in its tourism success: millions visit each year to see Edinburgh Castle, the medieval and 18th century tenements of the Royal Mile, and the Classical Revival New Town. The conservation of existing structures and the introduction of new architecture is, in theory, strictly controlled to maintain heritage values. In practice, however, there have been numerous examples of developments that have challenged Edinburgh’s architectural status quo. This paper will explore two recent examples of contemporary architecture in hotel developments within Edinburgh’s historic centre that have attracted a range of reactions from the public and press. In doing so, the increasingly irreconcilable needs and outcomes of tourism, community management, urban planning, architectural design, and heritage conservation will be highlighted.

In recent years, digital heritage has emerged as an important new field of research and practice, with an implicit ambition to record, conserve and even reconstruct culturally significant sites and artefacts threatened by war, climate change, natural disasters, development and neglect. Digital heritage initiatives have been enthusiastically promoted and adopted by government bodies, institutions and philanthropic organisations from around the world. Despite its allure, the application and utility of preserving, managing and reproducing built heritage via digital technology remains largely untested, and carries with it risks that may ultimately undermine the practice altogether. Drawing from recent examples such as the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA)'s replica Palmyra Arch, and Factum Arte's facsimile of Tutankhamen's Tomb, this paper identifies some of the particular challenges raised by the physical replication of heritage using digital technologies. Issues such as the quality of reproduction, the motivations for such projects, and unintended outcomes (e.g. neglect, complacency) are considered, as are more philosophical questions such as the revision of history. As such, the paper takes on a critical and provocative future vision of digital heritage technology and its use in replication, by highlighting some of the threats such practices may pose to the very cultural heritage it aims to protect.

Super-sized structures that mimic or quote smaller 'real world' things have been a feature of our landscape for many centuries. Largely as a result of the introduction of the motorcar, a new phase of structures with amplified proportions swept North America from the 1920s: roadside cafes, service stations and hotels utilised what David Gebhard labelled "programatic architecture" to capture the attention of passing motorists. This trend first appeared in Australia in the 1960s and pe ked in popularity in the 1980s. Numerous "Big Thing"' (to use the common Australian label) have been constructed in the past decade, such as the Big Golden Gumboot in Tully, QLD (2003), and thus the trend continues. Recent years have also seen the emergence of a 'Big' dilemma for local and State authorities, as Australia's earliest Big Things start to decay, go bankrupt, or attract criticism for the outdated versions of Australian history and identity that they seemingly promote (as with the Big Prawn in allina [NSW]), the Big Lobster in Kingston [SA] and the Big Captain Cook in Cairns [QLD]). These roadside attractions have become significant landmarks with many layers of social, aesthetic and cultural importance at local and national levels, and their heritage value has begun to be acknowledged. In 2009 the Big Pineapple (Nambour, QLD) was inscribed on the Queensland Heritage Register, and as other landmarks have come under threat of closure or demolition, debate about the future of these structures has uickly followed. This paper will historicise Australia's Big Things and consider the emerging heritage dilemma, and in doing so will reflect on the changing socio-political landscape that these architectural features occupy.

There are countless examples of explorers and prospectors being duped by the gleam of fool's gold, or pyrite: a mineral that has a remarkably golden sheen but on closer inspection is revealed to be something altogether different. Pyrite has its own uses and can be found in close proximity to real gold deposits, but it lacks the prestige that has long been bestowed on its metallic namesake. A similar phenomenon can be observed in urban environments, where seemingly 'normal' neoclassical terraces, castellated towers, 1950s bungalows and even strangely rigid palm-trees pepper the landscape, blending in to their surroundings through cunning acts of architectural camouflage. These carefully crafted façades can sometimes echo their surroundings so effectively that passers-by fail to notice the subtle differences that hint that these structures are not, in fact, what they seem. Appearing on the surface to be one thing whilst operating as something different, one might regard these as architectural 'fool's gold': terraces obscuring subway vents, bungalows masking electrical substations, castellated forms hiding pumping towers and telecommunications masts that take the form of palms, pine trees and church crosses. This paper uses the phenomenon of architectural camouflage, drawing on examples from North America, Europe and Australia, to challenge existing attitudes about authenticity in architectural design and heritage practice. Are these 'fake' forms essentially worthless, serving only to highlight a predominantly Western distaste for ugly infrastructure? Or are they of value for a different reason, serving as an indicator of contemporary fondness for 'hyperreality', whereby a convincing 'fake' of one form is preferable to the gritty reality of another?

Nova Scotia is marketed as a region of Canada that cherishes its Scottish heritage. Settled in the seventeenth century by the Scots, French and later British, the province subsequently became a favoured destination for Scottish migrants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the turn of the twentieth century large parts of Nova Scotia remained 'Scottish' in terms of population ethnicity and spoken language (Gaelic), and even recent census data indicates this trend continues, though somewhat diminished. 'Scottishness' is both a commodity and a past-time in Nova Scotia, attracting tourists and providing a point of reference for those that remain in the community year-round. This paper will consider the translation of architectural expressions of 'Scottishness' from Scotland to Nova Scotia. In particular this paper will describe two key processes that have been undertaken in order to locate 'Scottishness' in the province's built environment: the redefinition and identification of 'Scottish' architectural elements in otherwise non-Scottish historic buildings, and the appropriation of 'Scottish' architectural traditions with no historical precedent in Nova Scotia for modern constructions. This approach will demonstrate that Nova Scotia's architectural 'Scottishness' is a translation of cultural tropes and isolated architectural elements that have been redefined in the twentieth century in order to more closely align the built identity of the province with the performed identity. In addressing this phenomenon this paper will consider whether Scottishness can be translated and understood through architecture in the diaspora, or whether attempting to do so will only achieve new and divergent meanings.

Though not the most common location to seek out and analyse architectural history, the open-air museum, a type of institution which typically has folk-culture, agriculture or early industrial change as its focus, exhibits architectural history in the form of numerous and closely arranged buildings selected for their ability to represent an era, structural use or innovation. One of the primary challenges experienced by museum managers is to ensure a collection of architectural exemplars that adequately represents the culture or time period the museum has as its focus, and to organise these buildings in the landscape in a way that visitors can understand. There is more than one type of visitor to the open-air museum, however-aside from the typically under-informed tourist, these museums support and indeed are supported by a community, often of a specific cultural background. This paper will focus on two museums, the Highland Folk Museum in Scotland and the Highland Village Museum in Nova Scotia, and the ways that their associated Highland Gaelic communities engage with and authenticate the architectural history exhibited at the museums. This paper will suggest that despite being moderated by the often academic approaches of the museum management, as the buildings included on site are used for accessing memories and traditions by their related communities in the present-day it is this community authority which dictates the inclusion, appearance and use of the buildings. As such, this paper will conclude that open-air museums, which have faced criticism in the past from architectural historians and heritage conservationists as being locations of fakery and fiction, can in some instances be genuine sites of cultural and community response and as such provide architectural historians with the opportunity to examine an altogether more modern history - that of the selection of and interaction with architectural history by communities for the purpose of extending cultural memory.

Since devolution in 1997 Scotland has been a nation increasingly conscious of its national brand. From the Year of Homecoming in 2009 to the opening of sites such as the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum (2011) and the Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre (2007), Scotland has utilized its long history and widespread diaspora to stimulate its tourism and business sectors and promote its cultural identity on a global scale. The Scottish government has undertaken several international partnerships in the fields of culture, education and commerce, and through its rhetoric and policy the government appears to be encouraging a global perception of Scotland as a nation in the throes of a 'New Enlightenment.' The National Museum of Scotland (and former Royal Museum) has benefited from this alleged cultural renaissance, having reopened this July following its second renovation in less than 15 years. Comprised of two separate buildings, the former Royal Museum (1854) and the Museum of Scotland (1998), the National Museum of Scotland's most recent construction program restored and modernised the Royal Museum structure, which had originally been built as an Industrial Museum before receiving Royal status in 1904. The renovation returned the Museum to its original 19th century appearance but added installations such as a four-storey 'Window on the World' structure that uses 850 artefacts to showcase "where the cultures of Scotland and the world meet." Given the fact that the Royal Museum's origins were in part a testament to Scotland's position in the United Kingdom and British Empire, the current Museum's new form communicates much about the evolution of Scotland's national identity and its relationship with the world. The 1998 and 2011 construction programs for the National Museum of Scotland are clear examples of Billig's suggestion that "national histories are continually being re-written, and the re-writing reflects current balances of hegemony." Scotland's evolution from 19th century industrial powerhouse of the British Empire to the increasingly independent 'Enlightened' nation of today has been echoed by the ever-changing form of its national Museum. This paper will explore the evolution of the National Museum of Scotland from its origins as an Industrial Museum to its modern conception, paying particular attention to the parallels between events in Scotland's national history and changes to the Museum's format. The recent renovation will be of specific focus, with an analysis of the exhibition content, marketing campaigns and architectural changes being cross-referenced against recent Scottish government policies, plans and rhetoric. This paper will ultimately seek to show that the National Museum of Scotland fulfils an alternate role as an historic artefact in and of itself, as much a victim of Scotland's evolving identity as the historic relics it houses.