Patrick Geddes An Unfinished Work

Page 1 ........ Geddes Introduction

Page 4 ........ A Career of Engagement
Page 8 ........ The Outlook Tower: A City Observatory
Page 12 ........ An Unfinished Work
 “Get beyond books, and even ball games, and into active
survey, always growing and extending, of the real world around
you. And seeking out, and finding out, what your life can best
“vivendo discimus” do to help in that, to be of service to it”

By living we learn Patrick Geddes.

Patrick Geddes
Shortly after Geddes’ birth in Ballater, West Aberdeenshire
02.10.1854, his family moved to a small cottage on Kinnoull
Hill overlooking Perth. Geddes was surrounded with an
‘atmosphere of family love, practical learning, and spiritual
faith,’1 and as a young boy he shows a keen interest in the
natural world. At the age of 20, Geddes furthered these
interests through his study of Biology at the Royal School of
Mines, London. Although fascinated by Darwin’s theory of
evolution, Geddes was not convinced. He challenged Darwin’s
theories in favour of cooperative relationships. Through the
investigation of relationships existing in the natural world,
Geddes distinguished between parasites and their hosts.
He derived the term ‘Reciprocal Accommodation’, where
the separation resulted in neither living as effectively as they
did when in partnership. Geddes’ diverse career originated
from these principles, and lead into his working with towns
and cities. He was interested in bringing about social change
by improving human life through the community. Through
this work he revealed his new identity as a social thinker and
activist.

1  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling person,
[London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975 p29

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 A Career of Engagement
“Geddes did not hesitate to marvel at the Geddes’ endeavour towards civic renewal could be seen in its
mysteries of life or capture them in the symbolic, first instance as he relocated to live in the tenement slums of
imaginative forms of art or literature. Yet he Edinburgh (1886). Geddes literally took up residence in order to
always went a step further and asked how achieve a level of community engagement for urban renewal,
‘He persuaded neighbors to put color washes on the walls of
life could be improved, rather than merely
the old dank closes, to brighten the tenement facades with
understood.”1
Volker M Welter: Biopolis window boxes ... he pointed out to the authorities the follies
of demolition when it left the native citizens of a town with
nowhere to live.’2 This work is an elaboration on his theory of
1  http://architectureandurbanism.blogspot.com/2010/10/volker-m-welter-biopolis-
patrick-geddes.html
conservative surgery, were sympathetic redevelopment could
bring around urban renewal. As Geddes and his wife moved
into the slums, the value with which he placed on working with
the local environment was rendered visible as he engaged with
community through activity. It was apparent that this action
was derived from his early studies favouring cooperative
relationships, where he linked his social philosophy to the
problems in Edinburgh at the time. This position allowed for the
development and testing of ideas in the location of Edinburgh,
where Geddes over a decade constantly devised ‘thinking
machines’, presenting the interconnections between the city
and its residents in graphic form. Through these methods, he
could present information in such a way as to highlight the
inter-connections between different disciplines. ‘Folk work
place’ was developed in order to explore the relationships
between people, place and occupation, where the actions of
the individual within a community were intrinsic to a collective
transition. Geddes celebrated the Greek ‘polis’, a word deriving
from the Latin ‘civitas’, meaning citizenhood. His celebration
reflected his views on the combination of people place and
culture, illustrated through the ‘Folk work place’ diagram.

2  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling person,
[London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975 p16

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The left side of the diagram accounts for the influence
place has on shaping man. On the right, this is reversed, in
representation of man guiding his own actions to remake
place. The diagram symbolises an unending interplay between
the 4 sections of life: acts, deeds facts, thoughts. We find
that these ideas lead to the development of a small, self
sustained community settlement, Edinburgh’s Outlook Tower.
Geddes had an anarchic vision of the individual development
of people and place. The community, taking responsibility
for its own future, he believed, would want its own culture-
institute, its Outlook Tower, its powerhouse, to co-ordinate
all the activities in developing the interrelations of Folk, Work
and Place. Geddes’ decade of work between 1886-1896 was
remarkable. Working with Edinburgh Social Union he acquire
and managing properties while instructing improvement
schemes in dilapidated areas. ‘He demonstrated his conviction
that education, participatory citizenship, and appreciation of
the natural world, would save industrial society.’1 From this
early civic work, we can see that Geddes has his sight set on
long term goals, rather than focusing solely on the immediate
objectives of the time. Geddes’ vision of the people’s marriage
with place sets up a framework where an active community
would have a responsibility for its own development. It seems
that these principles are universally applicable to todays cities
in need of regeneration, where the detachment of people
from place results in the failure to adapt through a process
of reconfiguration. Ultimately, this leads to instances of
redundancy, where the lack of civic ownership results in total
abandonment. The themes emerging from the inception of
Geddes’ civic work were carried out throughout his entire
1  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling
person, [London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975 p15
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‘Place studied without work or folk is a
matter of atlases and maps. Folk with-
out place and work are dead.’ 1
1  Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution (London: William & Norgate,
1949) new and revised edition, p196.
career. This venture inspired others to take responsibility in
combining the arts and sciences for the ultimate benefit of
society. His methods of working were through the framework
of collaboration, where direct engagement with people and
place, leads to a new public awareness of their local, and
Patrick Geddes Acts, Deeds, Facts, furthermore sustainable civic regeneration. Geddes admitted
Thoughts Diagram that not enough was known about the way the public operated
Cities in Evolution (London: William
& Norgate, 1949) new and revised within the city, the publics understanding of their locality, and the
edition, p194
improvements that could be made to transform lives. It was his
view to begin an investigation and produce “experiments” in-
order to test ideas for the regeneration of the city environment.
He appeals to the architect and city planner to become
involved in active survey, scraping the surface of the city so
that they have the provision to develop attractive solutions. In
reaction against the conventional politics of opposing parties,
Geddes promoted his principles of co-operation and survey
as the only way to bring about real change. Geddes’ believed
that ‘sociology was a discipline which must grow through an
interaction of thought and action’. Today these principles seem
timeless, as they remain as relevant to our cities and residents
Broadening our Architectural Practice
Architectures Public?
today, as they were when he was actively involved in the city
P3
of the 19th century.
Patrick Geddes Acts, Deeds, Facts,
Thoughts, General Structure Diagram.
Cities in Evolution (London: William
& Norgate, 1949) new and revised
edition, p195
 The Outlook Tower:
A City Observatory

The development of the tower is inseparable from Geddes’

community based activities in Edinburgh during the 1890’s. It
could be described as a physical realisation Geddes’ working
with communities.

Acquiring the old Observatory (1982), located at the end

of Castle esplanade, Geddes set about developing it as a
regional study centre, ‘drawing together both academics and
townsmen into a forceful, thoughtful community.’1 Geddes’
view on sociology as an interaction of ‘thought and action’ 2
can be seen to come to fruition as he established the tower as a
‘social laboratory’. Cosmo Burton described the Tower as “the
solid or three-dimensional expression of Geddes’s thought”3.
Geddes transferred his theories of mutual living quite literally
into a socially engaged collaboration, anchored through the
Outlook Tower, which favoured an attitude of participation to
that of sole authorship. It is true to say that not many knew
the full extend of what Geddes aimed to achieve. To a certain
extent he was walking blind as he never failed to recognize
that the activities were ‘part of a scientific experiment in social
evolution’.4

1  Meller, Helen Elizabeth. Patrick Geddes : Social Evolutionist and City Planner. London, New York
Taylor & Francis Routledge, 1993 p130
2  Meller, Helen Elizabeth. Patrick Geddes : Social Evolutionist and City Planner. London, New York
Taylor & Francis Routledge, 1993 p56
3  Meller, Helen Elizabeth. Patrick Geddes : Social Evolutionist and City Planner. London,
New York Taylor & Francis Routledge, 1993 p130
4  Meller, Helen Elizabeth. Patrick Geddes : Social Evolutionist and City Planner. London, New York
Taylor & Francis Routledge, 1993 p79
Outlook Tower, Edinburgh
http://www.patrickgeddestrust.co.uk/oldgeddespanels.htm
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 Operation
Geddes categorized the exhibition material via the numerous
sequentially designed floors, leading the visitor from the local
to the regional. Preferring the user to start their journey from
the top, navigating progressively downward, Geddes liked to
rush the users up a winding staircase, bypassing all the other
rooms, arriving onto a narrow balcony. At this point they would
experience panoramic views of Edinburgh, soon to be led into
the darkened turret and the related view of Edinburgh through
camera obscura. Geddes likened the projected image from
the camera obscura to a “modern painting”, where ‘both the
perspective and color being compressed into a form easily
assimillable to the eye’. For Geddes, this was ‘a symbol of
the change from the artist’s view - the aesthetic and emotional
view - to the limitless panorama, impossible to absorb in one
go, of the geographical or scientific view’1. Progressively the
visitor travels back down to the streets of Edinburgh via the
various floors dedicated to Edinburgh, Scotland, English
speaking countries, Europe and finally the World. Due to the
experimental nature of the Outlook Tower, Geddes could
never see it as an end in itself, rather he was ‘forever seeing
ways of modifying, expanding or changing its many faceted
components. Like a sculptor, he could mould, elide, enlarge
and attenuate, but he could not bring himself to the stage of
completion.’2
Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement
and to the Study of Civics (Ernest Benn, 1915), p. 324

1  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling
person, [London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975 p130
2  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling
person, [London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975 p141

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 “Some of you may think it finished. That has been the way with most colleges...In this
connection pray look up my own notes marked “collaborations, Elaboration, Independence”
and let us try to organize a real students’ workshop in which a man could steadily progress
(as you yourself have been doing) from one to the other.”1
1  Paddy Kitchen, An introduction to the ideas and life of Patrick Geddes, A most unsettling person, [London, Victor Gollancz LTD] 1975
p134

An Unfinished Work
Thomas Marr, who was engaged as Geddes’ winter assistant
at Dundee, was invited to run the tower, taking over much of
the day-to-day work. The above quotation is taken directly
from Geddes’ correspondence with Marr in relation to his
ambitions of the building acting as civic laboratory.

The work of Geddes was never bound to a particular place,

Edinburgh could be described as the initial testing ground
for his work, where further development of his civic museum
movement between 1910 and 1920 resulted in exhibitions
located in Britain, Europe and India. Geddes passionately
believed that if man was to achieve success in creating
a balanced urban environment, he was to work through
collaboration. His exhibition works sought to communicate
civic understanding in order that they might be part of improving
their own surroundings. Geddes’ works are not as an end in
themselves, but part of the long term goal promoting mutual
living. This level of thinking can be applied to our view of the
city today where an interaction of social processes and spatial
thinking could result in the further fruition of Geddes’ work.

Geddes spoke of the city plans as a ‘system of hieroglyphics

in which man has written the history of civilisation, and the
more tangled their apparent confusion, the more we may be
rewarded in deciphering it.’1

Geddes treated the city as an evolving archive, what if we were

to engage with the city through the models and tools left at our
feet. What if we are to continue the ‘unfinished work’?

1  Patrick Geddes, Cities in Evolution (London: William & Norgate, 1949) new and revised
edition p170
Summer meeting during the 1890’s
Cities in Evolution (London: William & Norgate, 1949) new and revised edition, p193
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Stephen McCullough Material 2010 | 2011 Dundee School of Architecture

www.stephenmccullough.co.uk 15