Art and landscape in a Tourist circuit of Edinburgh (Scotland - UK)

Art and landscape in a Tourist circuit of Edinburgh (Scotland - UK)

23-08-25

This summer the Scottish capital has transformed into an open-air museum thanks to a cultural route that brings together some of the city’s finest landscape sculptures with the retrospective Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, currently on display at the Royal Scottish Academy. The initiative, promoted by VisitScotland, the National Galleries of Scotland and LNER, proposes a six-mile walking tour that connects contemporary art, nature and urban life, offering a new way to experience the city.

The starting point is the Royal Scottish Academy, where Andy Goldsworthy’s exhibition immerses visitors in a sensory universe in which nature itself becomes artistic material. The British artist, internationally renowned for his ephemeral interventions in natural landscapes, presents works created with unconventional materials such as cracked clay, dyed wool, rusted wire, woven reeds, and even sheep’s urine on canvas. The exhibition, open until November 2, marks half a century of creation and reflects how Goldsworthy’s work seeks to build bridges between humankind and the environment.

Leaving the gallery, the walk continues toward the Botanic Garden, where Barbara Hepworth’s pierced sculpture plays with light and shadow, evoking the purity of abstract form. In the garden’s pond, a bronze girl emerges surrounded by water lily leaves, while a sundial designed by Ian Hamilton Finlay invites reflection on the passage of time in an environment that fuses science, art and nature.

The itinerary follows the course of the Water of Leith, where the daily bustle of local markets intertwines with unexpected artistic encounters. Visitors can sample artisan bread, Perthshire strawberries or insect-based sweets as they stroll along a path that suddenly reveals an Anthony Gormley sculpture. The life-sized bronze figure, positioned partly in the water, creates surprise while blending organically into the urban landscape, a reminder that art can also appear as a discovery.

One of the highlights of the route comes at the gardens of Modern One and Modern Two, Edinburgh’s twin contemporary art galleries. Here rises Landform, Charles Jencks’s celebrated intervention: a set of spiraling green hills intersected by artificial pools that transform the ground into a monumental sculptural work. This piece, considered a landmark in landscape sculpture worldwide, challenges the boundaries between nature and artifice, inviting visitors to walk through it as part of the artwork itself.

The tour concludes at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, where the project On Sacred Ground provides a space for meditation on biodiversity. A labyrinth of aromatic plants such as yarrow and centaury leads to benches inscribed with the names of Scotland’s threatened birds, including the stone curlew and the capercaillie. The installation combines art and ecological conservation, reminding visitors of the fragility of the natural environment and the need to preserve it.

The proposal coincides with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the city’s largest cultural event, which floods the streets with street performances and alternative shows. This overlap turns the Scottish capital into a living stage where visual art, theatre and music meet and dialogue in multiple formats, consolidating Edinburgh as one of the world’s most vibrant cultural cities.

For the organizers, the route is not only designed to attract tourists but also to redefine the relationship between citizens and their urban space. “We want people to see Edinburgh with new eyes, to discover corners through art, and to understand the city as a living organism where nature, heritage and contemporary culture coexist,” explained VisitScotland.

With its blend of historic sculptures, modern interventions and reshaped landscapes, the route offers a unique experience that connects tradition and avant-garde. Edinburgh thus presents itself as an open-air laboratory where sculpture becomes a common language between visitors and residents. It is a walk that not only crosses streets and parks, but also invites us to rethink how cities can integrate art into everyday life, turning each journey into an opportunity for contemplation and surprise.

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