Come along to Doors Open Day at Collective!

This year, you'll be able to join a guided tour of the Cooke Telescope, housed in the McEwan Dome of the City Observatory – which is not usually accessible to the public. Please book a ticket to avoid disappointment on the day.

The City Observatory, designed by William Henry Playfair in 1818, gained Royal status after King George IV’s 1822 visit to Edinburgh. Having been designated a Royal Observatory for most of its life, the site lost this moniker to the observatory on Blackford Hill in 1896, in part due to rising levels of light pollution from the New Town. Re-designated as the City Observatory, it was run by the amateur Astronomical Society of Edinburgh from the late 1930s until its closure in 2009. In 2013, Collective moved to a temporary gallery space on Calton Hill and began fundraising to restore and develop the observatory and site in partnership with City of Edinburgh Council as a new centre for contemporary art. The new site opened to the public in November 2018.

Image by Tom Nolan.