Divide and conquer: Jestico + Whiles creates a new landmark at W Edinburgh

This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #232

Words: Harry McKinley
Photography: Ed Reeve

Edinburgh’s exquisite skyline is the stuff of great art and literature. Its ancient castle – one of the oldest fortified sites in Europe – presides over the Gothic towers of the Old Town, while neoclassical and Georgian buildings define the New. Yet while history seeps from every cobble of this storied setting, Edinburgh is not a city held fast in time – it is a vital, effervescent place, with a buoyant culture and a fiercely modern verve.

Still, new interventions when set amidst such iconography tend to bend opinion. The W Edinburgh, or at least part of it, is no exception. Though two out of three buildings that comprise the recently opened five-star hotel are classic in architectural style, it is the 12-storey Ribbon Building that has claimed the lion’s share of attention. As the name suggests, it is a great swirl of a structure, bursting from the pavement and spiralling upwards to a single, unrestrained flourish. It doesn’t slink into its surroundings, attempting to disappear amid carbon-blackened stone, but nor was it meant to – clad to resemble burnished, forged bronze.