40 George Square is a
tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. ...
in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, Scotland forming part of the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
. Until September 2020 the tower was named David Hume Tower (often abbreviated as DHT).
The building contains lecture theatres, teaching spaces, offices, a café and a shop.
Name
The tower was originally named after the
Scottish Enlightenment philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...
, who was an alumnus of the university. In September 2020, in response to the
Black Lives Matter movement, the university announced that they would be renaming the tower to 40 George Square. The university stated that Hume's "comments on matters of race, though not uncommon at the time, rightly cause distress today."
Background
The tower was built as part of a significant 1960s
redevelopment of
George Square
George Square () is the principal Town square, civic square in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is one of six squares in the city centre, the others being Cathedral Square, Glasgow, Cathedral Square, St Andrew's Square, Glasgow, St Andrew's ...
by the university, which saw the demolition of numerous
Georgian terraced houses and tenements to make way for new university buildings. The redevelopments were opposed by community groups and organisations, such as the
Cockburn Association and the
Scottish Georgian Society. Other buildings constructed included the university's
Main Library and
Appleton Tower.
Design and construction
The building was designed for the university's Arts Faculty by the Scottish
modernist
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
architect
Robert Matthew of
Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners (RMJM), alongside the structural engineering firm Blyth & Blyth.
The tower is , and 14 storeys high. To the rear of the tower there is a row of lecture theatres, which are joined to the tower via a lower ground floor. The lower ground floor, known as the Hub, includes a café and shop surrounding a central atrium.
The structure of the tower is made from reinforced concrete with brick infill, and is clad with slabs of polished black slate and
York sandstone. The block of lecture theatres is similarly made of reinforced concrete and clad in York sandstone.
The construction took place from 1960 until 1963, and was carried out by the contractor firm Crudens.
In 2006 Historic Scotland designated the building as
category A listed
Category, plural categories, may refer to:
General uses
*Classification, the general act of allocating things to classes/categories Philosophy
* Category of being
* ''Categories'' (Aristotle)
* Category (Kant)
* Categories (Peirce)
* Category ( ...
, the highest category, stating the building is "one of the key monuments of Scottish Modernism", the architecture is of a "very high standard of design and execution" and the materials to be of "exceptional quality"
Renovation
In 2014, the lower ground floor was renovated to create the DHT Hub, including teaching space, a café and a
EUSA shop. The renovations cost £15 million and won the RICS Conservation Award, Scottish Design Awards commendation, and a GIA Awards commendation.
References
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures of the University of Edinburgh
Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh
Listed educational buildings in Scotland