The Potterrow Mandela Centre or Potterrow Student Centre is operated by

Edinburgh University Students' Association Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Site and architecture

The name "Potterrow" recalls a medieval suburb which stood outside the

town walls A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

. Its Victorian buildings and street layout disappeared when the university demolished the area for redevelopment in the mid-1960s. With its distinctive large

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite, ...

dome, the building was designed by noted architects

Morris and Steedman Morris and Steedman was an architecture firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The firm was founded by James Shepherd Morris (1931–2006) and Robert Russell Steedman (born 1929) in the 1950s. The pair are best known for their private houses in the mo ...

and completed in 1973. The centre was refurbished in 2012.

Use

Potterrow contains a variety of student entertainment and support services including a shop, a bank, two cafés, Edinburgh's largest nightclub, the university's

Chaplaincy A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

The Advice Place
and the main EUSA offices. In 1986, students voted to rename the centre in honour of imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1 ...

. During the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

in August, the building is used as a comedy venue under the name Pleasance Dome with five performing spaces, operated by the

Pleasance Theatre Trust The Pleasance Theatre Trust (often simply called The Pleasance) is a venue operator and producer of live events, known internationally for being one of the major, so-called "Big Four", operators at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's la ...

Gallery

File:Pleasance Dome (Potterrow Student Centre), Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 (44246074022).jpg, alt=Photo of Potterrow as the 'Pleasance Dome' during the 2018 Fringe Festival, Potterrow as the 'Pleasance Dome' during the 2018 Fringe Festival File:Inside Potterrow Student Centre, Edinburgh (15216415677).jpg, alt=Photo of the interior in 2014, Interior and dome in 2014 following renovations File:History undergraduate Tomas Sanders speaking on Black History Month.jpg, The University Chaplaincy in 2017 File:Potterrow 'Pleasance Dome' box office and cafe bar seating at the Pleasance Dome during Edinburgh Festival Fringe (209146205).jpg, Festival Fringe interior in 2006

References

Buildings and structures of the University of Edinburgh 1973 establishments in Scotland School buildings completed in 1973 {{UK-university-stub