Cobblepunk Edinburgh
Categories: buildings-and-cities
Tags: cities, urbanwalks, plants, edinburgh
Date: 26 February 2012 16:23:38
Edinburgh must be the most three-dimensional of our British cities. I like that. It appeals to my inner sf fan. All those old illustrations covers with bridges between towering buildings and streets in the sky and monorails and personal jetpacks.
OK, this is the steampunk version of that, with all those 18th and 19th century buildings, or perhaps a little earlier than that - we could call it the cobblepunk version. One of the characteristic sounds of the city being buses rumbling down cobbled streets.
The four bridges or viaducts that have the biggest effect are all 19th century - North Bridge, South Bridge, Regent Bridge, George IV Bridge - the latter two names are a bit of a giveaway - so they really are the gaslight era, but somehow they look and feel older. The basic layout of the Old Town and its immediate surroundings is mediaeval even if a lot of the buildings themselves are later Scottish Baronial imposters. And that mid-century cobbled Edinburgh was the one Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle were born and brought up in, so its one of the original homes of steampunkery and gaslightery, even if London (and a little bit New York) are where such things found their dark corners to hide in.
You could click here for some more pictures
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And some nice plants to show its not all doom and gloom even in January:
