Thread by @culturaltutor

Edinburgh is often called one of the world's most beautiful cities, but what makes it so special?

Well, Edinburgh is built around an extinct volcano, and so it's a perfect example of how interesting geography leads to interesting architecture...

Edinburgh's location is unusual — the city is centred around a castle built on an extinct volcano, to the right of this picture.

During the Ice Age the surrounding softer rock was eroded, leaving a crag with three steep cliff faces and one long, sloping ascent.

And this geography is part of what gives Edinburgh its character, because it makes the city feel vertical.

There are countless views that seem to defy gravity, with buildings apparently stacked on top of one another — concealing streets on different levels between.

It gives the city a wonderful sense of texture, because each part has its own relationship with that geography and thus a miniature identity of its own.

Like the low-lying Grassmarket, which is dominated by the castle and its imposing rockfaces.

Edinburgh's location has also led to the creation of bizarre urban features like Regent's Bridge — two streets on wholly different planes crossing one another.

And this is just one of many unusual architectural compromises made to accomodate for the city's strange geography.

Although people have been living in the area for thousands of years, Edinburgh itself was founded in the 11th century, given a town charter by Robert the Bruce in 1329, and became the capital of Scotland in 1437.

In 1554 the English burnt it down — but Edinburgh recovered fast.

So, the long slope leading to the castle has come to be known as the Royal Mile.

Steep staircases and narrow alleys (called closes or wynds) fan out from it, leading to hidden courts or down to the lowlands on either side.

Labyrinthine, unpredictable, endlessly charming.

The Old Town had been hemmed in by the city walls and so people had to build upwards, creating a densely populated, smoke-filled metropolis.

Hence Edinburgh's nickname, "Auld Reekie", in reference to the cloud of smoke once hanging above it and visible for miles around.

Most of those old teetering tenements are long gone now, having been replaced in the 19th century by smaller Victorian buildings.

But the fascinating atmosphere of the clustered Old Town remains — Gothic in the literary rather than the historical sense.

During the 18th century Edinburgh became a cultural capital, a city teeming with philosophers, scientists, and writers — like David Hume and Adam Smith.

This was a place at the heart of the Enlightenment, with a thriving university and a blossoming sense of identity.

And Edinburgh was soon filled with neoclassical architecture to match its culture.

The pinnacle was the New Town, an urban expansion designed in 1766 by James Craig.

Rational and harmonious, it contrasts directly with the chaotic Old Town — Edinburgh became a city of variety.

The New Town, which was further expanded in the 19th century, is an early example of modern urban planning.

From above it looks like a housing estate built after World War Two — except that these are all neoclassical buildings.

Far ahead of its time.

And so Edinburgh came to be known as the Athens of the North.

For its profusion of neoclassical architecture, its contributions to philosophy and science, its rationalising urban design, and its physical resemblance to Athens — both cities dominated by a large, central rock.

There are some major Gothic exceptions to Edinburgh's neoclassical identity, however.

Like Tolbooth Kirk, a Gothic Revival meeting hall with a 70 metre spire, just below the castle.

It has since become the home of the Edinburgh International Festival.

And St Giles' Cathedral, further down the Royal Mile, a large Medieval church with major 19th century additions.

It has been at the heart of religion in Scotland for centuries, and is immediately recognisable by its striking crown steeple:

Inside St Giles' is the remarkable Thistle Chapel, built for the Order of the Thistle, a chivalric order founded in the 17th century.

The chapel was designed by Robert Lorimer and built between 1906 and 1911 — a veritable temple of the British Arts & Crafts Movement.

But foremost among Edinburgh's Gothic architecture is the Scott Monument, built in the 1840s in memory of the poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott.

He was one the most popular writers of the 19th century, and his personal Medievalism is reflected in this soaring Gothic fantasy.

The Scott Monument is just off Princes Street, on the edge of the New Town, and is separated from the Old Town by the low-lying Princes Street Gardens and the National Gallery.

Another unusual physical feature of Edinburgh complemented by wonderful architecture on all sides.

And not far from the Scott Monument is Edinburgh Waverley, the city's primary train station.

Like so much else, it has been designed in an incredibly unusual way and lies in a depression between the Old and New Towns.

But that's Edinburgh, a vertical city defined by its strange geography and the architectural solutions to whatever problems it has posed.

Roads snaking over one another, buildings impossibly stacked up, hidden alleyways, winding terraces.

Centuries of organic growth.

There is much more to what makes Edinburgh special than its urban design, of course, but this is clearly one of the major reaons why it feels different to other cities.

Sometimes it's not just about what you build, but where you build.