This space is for written works in response to the towers. Stories, poetry, essays, rants, notes...submit yours using our form.
Written Works – click titles to read
Big Yellow Things
by Alph Thomas
Yellow Towers
Kateryna Ustiuhova
Transition AffectMark Steven
The Yellow Towers
PWP Dunne
Those Towering ThingsJohn Gilchrist
Yellow Towers, Edinburgh
Alice Tarbuck
Seven Yellow Husbands
Rosie Aspinall Priest
Big Yellow Jackets
Deirdre Conway
Yellow Jackets
Daniel Orejon and András Sata
Thoughts from Contributors
I've thoroughly enjoyed watching them from afar. One day, it felt they just appeared out of nowhere.
– Oscar
They evoke a modern feeling of the sublime... their colossal scale, and contrast with the rest of the landscape of Leith. I've enjoyed finding aspects of them on the skyline wherever I am in the city, poking up between buildings. I'll miss them when they've been shipped away to the ocean.
– Jim Cowan
I heard them described by a Fringe comedian as “crappy yellow Eiffel towers” and I was fuming! I see them as beacons of hope and I’ll miss seeing them from my kitchen window. – Lynne Morris
Mesmerising whatever the weather - disappearing into the haar or sparkling in the sun
– Izzy Irvine
I love the happy, yellow pop of colour appearing on the horizon like a surprise. They remind me of Crayola Crayons. – Gillian Webster
I like them. We have a close view of them from our balcony and they bring some sunshine to our north facing view. I love catching glimpses of them when I'm in other parts of Edinburgh. Sometimes they look huge and looming
– Judith
they are big. we are small. and we made something big.
– sashalb
I hated them at the beginning I’m going to miss them now…🫣
– nkassia
I will be crestfallen when they leave but happy about what they are contributing to society.– Laurie Pierce
I live in Dockside so they are part of my every day, morning noon and night. The Port is never silent, mainly the boats which are docked. But the BYTs seem silent sentinels over the Docks.
– Jo
I love the towers, and the difference in visual perspective from different parts of the City and Fife. I’ll miss them.
- Amy Oliver
Loving energy transition, jobs and economic growth, seen from our window
–Jim Jarvie
They have been a dramatic addition to the skyline– Rosemary Way
The towers have dominated the skyline in Leith for some time, so as an organiser for Edinburgh Urban Sketchers, I organised some meets in Leith so we had the opportunity to draw these structures.
– Pam Thorburn
The towers are a daily surprise, towering as they do over our neighbourhoods in Leith and Newhaven. They seem to represent a new age of engineering ambition, and they also represent hope, a step toward a just climate transition. I wish more of them were manufactured here, but it's good to see Leith at the centre of such a significant change.
– Mark Steven
I remember the first time I saw it was when my mum was visiting and I had taken her to the terrace in the museum. I was pointing things out to her that we could see in the horizon. As I came to pointing towards the sea, I saw these yellow things I could not recognise. I was quite embaressed when she asked me what they were; i was clueless to what seemed to have appeared overnight on the skyline of my town. A few days later I saw them again when I took them to Crammond. There they were again, mocking me - I did not recognise these new residents. I am still not quite sure what they are no matter what people try to tell me. It does something and it is used for something. For a long time I thought they were building another bridge and for the first few months no one seemed to know either. I tried looking them up online and there was nothing.
– Hrishitonoy
i wanna climb them and see the world
– Aria
I just love to see them from different places around Edinburgh
– Agnes Pachacz
I like them, they have a personality. And spark happiness when I see them. – Will Hewitt
A close friend came to visit me in April, and on her way to me she glimpsed the Yellow Things. We went out to walk around the town and I asked where we should go. No hesitation - to the Big Yellows please! Can we get close? How many are there?? What are they???
So we walked north, of course, and I tried my best to answer her questions! She still talks about how we were drawn down to them. It reminds me of a bit in Moby Dick - if you replace water with windfarm jackets!
"There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water"
– A Lyall
I remember vividly waking up one morning to see just a few of them through my living room window and they kept multiplying over following few weeks. It felt really ominous
– MP
I have grown to like them but they can be ominous, imposing, a little absurd even! They have inspired my writing and thinking and while reading War of The Worlds by H.G Wells I began to imagine what if the threat came not from Mars but rather from something we built cheerfully in our own city...
– PWP Dunne
To me, the Yellow Towers are about displacement and belonging. They are temporary in Leith, not yet rooted anywhere, yet each already has a particular place in the sea where it is meant to be. I find something hopeful in that.
– Kateryna Ustiuhova
For me, my feelings about the towers are entwined with their end purpose of renewable energy. I appreciate their graphic forms and the visual impact they have on the skyline. But it’s also how they represent a better, more caring future and the evolving role that Leith continues to play as a vibrant working port and vital hub in Scotland’s modern, sustainable industry.
– Emily McLeish
Have become a familiar part of the landscape instantly, and yet still surprising to catch glimpses of them from varying approaches
– Nadia Williams
I initially found them vibrant and intimidating, I imagined they were used for some sort of gathering of oil or something else deep in the sea. I saw them as a threat to nature.
– Romana Docherty
They are ridiculously dominant, easily seen from across the city. From Restalrig, they appear huge!
– Jim Bennett
The scale of the towers, from each point with views to Leith and the city how they dominate. The view across the city scape of New Town roofs, the chimney pots once heating the city homes, and now the infrastructure and engineering taken to heat and power homes. – Astrid McIntyre
I would like to keep one.
– Timothea Armour
I was very perplexed when they arrived, it was a bit like someone had built some skyscrapers overnight but nobody had announced it was happening or mentioned it. I see them on my walks down Easter Road where they create a sort of optical illusion - they look like they tower over the entire city somehow, and look closer than they were. I think I also saw a boat bringing them in one day from the top of Calton Hill which was quite surreal - it was a massive, blue, flat ship with these tall and in some ways dainty looking structures stood on top.
I'm glad someone is creating this memorial to our big yellow friends. I became a bit obsessed with them and I know others did too, and it's nice to see that whimsical collective obsession be recognised! I think a lot of it has to do with the colour - the sunny yellow contrasts so much with their architecture and the surrounding docks. Every time I see them it brings comfort and joy - mad to say something like that about these industrial towers.
I will miss them greatly.
– EBC
They are so bright and cheery. They are a landmark albeit temporary. They a reminder of our connection to other places in the world. – Monty from Leith Walk polisbox popups
I have imagined when the world floods an ark getting caught on top of a tower and beginning a new world from there.
– sashalb
Very big Yellow Things that dominate Leith and Edinburgh coastline of the Forth and very hard to ignore and most importantly adds colour to the city skyline.
– Michael J Durnan
We will miss them when they are gone
– Joad Hughes, Kieran Roscoe, Mary Gray, Sophie Bryan
They are big and I am small
– Sashalb
I see the yellow hings every day when I open my curtains. Sometimes something exciting will happen like someone will go up to the top on a massive cherry picker, or one will have wheels and the workers will move them around.
– Stu Anderson
I love them but unlike some I don't have to look at the flashing lights every night!
– Joan McN
Totally captivating. My partner and I cycled through the port area and were lucky enough to get up close to them. We can just see them peaking over the far wall of the garden of our tenement flat and seeing them from these new angles was exciting and awe-inspiring.
– Regan Burles
I like the towers, but I think I would resent them if they were any other colour.
– Charlotte Brady