Scotsman Steps from the depths
It was May and for my southern european standards it should be warm. But instead, thermometers insisted in a mere 5C. I was dragging heavy luggage that clattered loudly over the uneven concrete slabs. The road to Edinburgh’s train station was chaotic; people rushing, buses rumbling, a pneumatic drill hammering the asphalt. Unsurprisingly, trains were late. It was also raining, and I wasn’t particularly happy; I don’t like rain when I’m out. To make things worse, Google Maps insisted I take what looked like a very long stairway down to the station. It wasn’t my idea of a well spent afternoon. But then I saw it - Work No. 1059, though at that moment it was simply "Stairway to Market Street". Hundreds of steps, each made from a different slab of ornamental stone. I could see serpentinite, gneiss, marble, limestones…It was a stairway to heaven, except it was going down and, as I don’t believe in hell, it had to be something else. Suddenly, the rain didn’t matter.
I shoved my luggage to one side, pulled out my phone, and started going up and down the wet, slippery stairs, stunned by that display of geodiversity.
“I’m sorry. Excuse me. Don’t mind me!”, I kept saying to puzzled commuters walking the steps and looking at me with a gaze that we - those who enjoy starring at façades and floors instead of monuments and paintings - know all too well. Not a single person paused to appreciate it while climbed up and down. Railway delays turned into an unexpected blessing. With each trip, I searched for some sign confirming that it had been the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences that had masterminded this marvel.
“They wanted to highlight Earth’s geodiversity, talk about our deep connection to the planet’s subsurface!”, I told myself. But there was nothing. All I found was a list of quarries where the “marbles”, as they called them, were sourced. Pakistan, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Brazi…“Marbles? This wasn’t the work of geologists. They would know that not all these rocks are marbles...”.
The train would depart in just 10 minutes, it was time. But what had I just seen?
I had seen Work No. 1059, a 2011 art installation by Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed. As part of the renovation of the derelict Scotsman Steps—originally built between 1899 and 1902 alongside the Scotsman Newspaper building - Creed transformed the staircase into a striking mosaic of colourful stone steps sourced from the most important ornamental stone quarries around the world. He described it as "like walking through the world". “Ah! There it was”, I thought, “he’ll recognise the geodiversity!” But no, it was all about “Edinburgh’s global significance and its rich historical legacy” and “turning a functional passage into a work of art beneath our feet.” Nothing about how those fossiliferous limestones, gneisses, serpentinites, true marbles and other rocks are the planet’s very own works of art.
No mention of the forces that shaped them, the immense pressure and time it took to form them, the stories of deep time locked within their veins and colours. The installation treaded on the sublime but stopped at the surface.
What if this staircase represented more than just Edinburgh’s historical significance and global trade routes? What if it also reminded us that much of this trade was driven by the search for geological resources — the Earth’s very foundations? Could it encourage us to reflect on humanity’s fleeting existence against the vast expanse of deep time? How much more meaningful would the journey be if each step prompted reflection on the planet’s ancient past as we ascend or descend the stairway of time? After all, aren’t we walking on the planet’s bones when we tread the Scotsman Steps?
I wonder if the Scotsman Steps aren’t more than a missed artistic opportunity – but an unspoken dialogue between art and geology, waiting to be recognized.
