Dunard Centre

With support from the Edinburgh & South East Scotland City Region Deal, the Dunard Centre will build on Edinburgh’s glorious musical past to create a new home for music in the future.

It's development will change Edinburgh’s musical landscape, catapulting our capacity to host the best performers in the world into a different league. It will change how the city presents, curates and develops music for generations to come.

IMPACT Scotland is the charity taking Dunard Centre forward, with a contribution of £25 million from the Edinburgh & South East Scotland City Region Deal and further investment from private donors – including £35m from the Dunard Fund, a long-term funder of the arts and music in Scotland.

Dunard Centre will sit in Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square, in the centre of the New Town, complementing the city’s World Heritage Site architecture and creating a bold focal point – a new cultural beating heart to thrive alongside the reinvigorated commercial developments of the square and St James Quarter.

Edinburgh has an international cultural reputation, attracting artists and audiences from around the world. But it is over 100 years since it last opened a purpose-built music venue, and with increasing investment in state-of-the-art acoustics in cities from Paris to Beijing, we too must dream big to stay ahead.   

With seating for 1,000 people, Dunard Centre will be a transformational new home for Scottish Chamber Orchestra and an iconic venue for Edinburgh International Festival. It will be a welcoming space for all, catering for every style of music, from rock and pop to classical, choral, folk and world.  

Through the support of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Dunard Centre will be built behind and directly connected to the Bank’s historic registered office on St Andrew Square in the heart of Edinburgh.  It will be ideally located, minutes from train, bus and tram stops linking it throughout the city, region, and the wider country.  

With design by David Chipperfield Architects, Reiach & Hall and Nagata Acoustics, enabling works have begun in the summer of 2022 by Sir Robert McAlpine – a prestigious construction firm with a track record of over 150 years across the UK including several buildings in the region.

IMPACT Scotland is bringing communities and organisations together to create a one-off alignment of partnership, funding and location, to create a transformational venue long recognised to be missing in the region’s cultural infrastructure.