The National Museum of Scotland sits on Chambers Street in Edinburgh's Old Town, its red sandstone bulk hard to miss. The original 1866 building was designed by Captain Francis Fowke, a military engineer who also gave the world the Royal Albert Hall, and was inspired by London's Crystal Palace. Prince Albert laid the foundation stone.

In 1998, the building gained a striking extension: the result of a European competition that drew 371 anonymous entries, won by a small London studio, Benson and Forsyth, whose angular geometries echo the Scots baronial tradition. The two buildings coexist as philosophical opposites: one neutral, displaying objects against bare walls; the other integrating exhibits into its very architecture.

VoiceMap's Old Town tours use the museum to trace Edinburgh's design legacy and examine how Scotland's architectural identity was forged, from Victorian ambition to late-twentieth-century reinvention.