New Directions in Theoretical Physics 5

11 Crichton Street

Edinburgh

EH8 9LE

A map showing the location of Appleton Tower can be found at

Location map

During the Second World War, the University resolved to make George Square the centre of its post-war development, and to abandon the King’s Buildings (KB) science campus. Little happened until 1949, when Sir Edward Appleton (Nobel Prize winner for Physics and the Principal from 1948 to 1965) arrived to steer the scheme to fruition. Embracing the spirit of the age, he decided to retain KB, for science buildings, foreseeing the multiplicity of technological research. Determined to achieve an architectural outcome of high quality, he brought in some of Scotland’s leading architects. Sir Basil Spence was appointed planning consultant, in 1954. Spence’s imaginative drawings determined the template of the new George Square, proposing a series of towers to the east, of which but two were realised. The then-professor of architecture, Sir Robert Matthew, was called upon to design the Arts Tower, (40 George Square).

Aware of the contemporary fear of an emerging schism between the arts and sciences, Appleton decreed that science undergraduates should spend their first year in the city-centre campus, and be encouraged to take courses in the humanities, as well as participate in student societies and extra-mural activities, so that undergraduates, and indeed staff, from different faculties would mingle. Appropriately, following Appleton’s death in 1965, his “Fundamental Science Building”, designed by Alan Reiach, was named after the Principal.

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