Sir Patrick Geddes

(2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932)

Nationality: Scottish

Citizenship: United Kingdom

Introduction
• Sir Patrick Geddes was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist
and pioneering town planner.

• He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and sociology.

• He introduced the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and coined the
term ‘’conurbation’’

• Patrick Geddes was born in Ballater on Deeside and spent his childhood
in Perthshire, attending Perth Academy. He studied at the Royal College of Mines in
London under between 1874 and 1878. In 1879 he established a zoological facility at
Stonehaven for Aberdeen University, and he served as a lecturer in zoology
at Edinburgh University from 1880 to 1888. He went on to hold the Chair of Botany
at University College, Dundee, from 1888 to 1919, and the Chair of Sociology at the
University of Bombay from 1919 to 1924.

EARLY LIFE AND INFLUENCES:

• Born in October 1854 at Ballater in West Aberdeen, Scotland, Patrick Geddes was
raised and educated in the countryside of Perth.

• His childhood was spent gardening with his father, conducting science experiments in
the shed, exploring the nearby woods and cliffs; and these experiences taught Geddes
deep lessons in ecology, inspiring his personality and career.

• As mentioned earlier Geddes had a lifelong contempt for examinations and never
took a university degree. After a period of private study, he chose to study Botany at
the University of Edinburgh (1874), but left after one week.

• He then went on to study Botany and Zoology with individual teachers and mentors in
London and Paris.
 • In London, he trained at the Royal College of Mines, under the great biologist and
evolutionist of the time, Thomas Huxley, whose influence on Geddes is said to have
been profound .

• Being a student of Huxley opened doors for him to study in France, and he
subsequently trained at the Sorbonne University .

• From then on and for the rest of his life, he was an ardent Francophile, enjoying an
empathy with France and French intellectual ideas which greatly influenced his
thinking. It was during this time that Geddes came into contact with some of
Europe’s progressive and radical thinkers.

CONCEPTS:
• Patrick Geddes explained an organism’s relationship to its environment as follows:

• “The environment acts, through function, upon the organism and conversely the
organism acts, through function, upon the environment.“ (Cities in Evolution, 1915) .

• In human terms this can be understood as a place acting through climatic and
geographic processes upon people and thus shaping them. At the same time people
act, through economic processes such as farming and construction, on a place and
thus shape it. Thus both place and folk are linked and through work are in constant
transition.

LEARNING BY DOING:
• Patrick Geddes believed that education was a catalyst for social change and active
citizenship.

• He explored the ways in which people learn more effectively.

• He developed an educational philosophy which emphasized the combination of ‘hand,

heart and head’, in that order of priority.

• He believed learning should engage the emotions, and include physical activity.

• This included ‘learning by doing’, as well as more traditional methods of learning

from books and lectures.

• Geddes also promoted an interdisciplinary approach to learning, highlighting the

useful connections and synergies between different subject areas and disciplines.
Published works:
• The Evergreen: A Northern Seasonal (1895/96), Patrick Geddes and Colleagues,
Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.

• City Development, A Report to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust (1904), Rutgers

University Press.

• The Masque of Learning (1912)

• Cities in Evolution (1915) Williams & Norgate, London.

• The life and work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose (1920) Longman, London.

Philosophy
To solve the complicated activities in the 19th. Cent., an effort to improve the living
environment was felt. Slowly there rose some public consciousness. In 1892, Geddes formed
the Outlook tower in Edinburgh and through this medium he presented the whole
complexities of Urban life.

• He insisted upon the integration of physical planning with social and economical
planning.

• Geddes advocated that there is need of simultaneous thinking in the fields of :

a)Folk b)Function c)Environment

Triangular Theory (Work, Place, Folk)

 • Inspired by the French sociologist Frederic Le Play's (1802–1886) triad of ʻLieu,
Travail, Familleʼ — which Geddes translated to “Work, Place, Folkʼ — Geddes
developed a new approach to regional and town planning based on the integration of
people and their livelihood into the environmental givens of the particular place and
region they inhabit.

• “The environment acts, through function, upon the organism and conversely the
organism acts, through function, upon the environment.“ (Cities in Evolution, 1915)

• In human terms this can be understood as a place acting through climatic and
geographic processes upon people and thus shaping them.

• At the same time people act, through economic processes such as farming and
construction, on a place and thus shape it. Thus both place and folk are linked and
through work are in constant transition.

• He emphasized that sound planning decisions have to be based on a detailed regional

survey, which established an inventory of a region's hydrology, geology, flora, fauna,
climate and natural topography, as well as its social and economic opportunities and
challenges.

• Geddes made his name as a pioneer in the field of town planning at a time when urban
deprivation and rampant industrialisation were both rife. He developed a deeply held
conviction that social structures and behaviour were related to spatial form and
environment: so that by changing a society's surroundings and environment, it was
possible to change the structure and behaviour of that society.

• This belief was first tested by Geddes' work in Edinburgh, where he brought about the
redevelopment of a number of parts of the Old Town, an area effectively abandoned
as slums in the late 1700s when the New Town was developed and little changed
since. Geddes worked with Edinburgh University to produce a series of halls of
residence, helping transform the environment and image of the Old Town. The most
striking of these was at Ramsay Gardens, at the head of the Royal Mile next to
the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade.

Geddes groundbreaking ideas were highly influential, and the projects in which he
collaborated wide ranging.

• He adopted Spencer's theory that the concept of biological evolution could be applied
to explain the evolution of society, and drew on Le Play's analysis of the key units of
society as constituting "Lieu, Travail, Famille" ("Place, Work, Family"), but changing
the last from "family" to "folk". In this theory, the family is viewed as the central
"biological unit of human society“from which all else develops.
• According to Geddes, it is from "stable, healthy homes" providing the necessary
conditions for mental and moral development that come beautiful and healthy
children who are able "to fully participate in life".

Almost a century ago, he wrote:

“Our greatest need today is to see life as whole, to see its many sides in their proper
relations; but we must have a practical as well as a philosophical interest in such an
integrated view of life.”

zAt a time when the effects of humanity's exploitation of the Earth's natural resources,
the decimation of cultural and biological diversity, and the anthropogenic alteration of
the planet's atmospheric composition are beginning to produce alarming ecological,
social and economic effects, Patrick Geddes’ call for an integrated view of life
deserves even more attention, today, then it did a hundred years ago. Geddes firmly
believed that there is a larger view of Nature and Life, a rebuilding of analyses into
Synthesis…ʼ

A map of how to conceive of and relate to place. From ’Cities in Evolution

• Seeing ‘life as whole’, which is to understand life

as a dynamic ecological, social, and cognitive process in
which humanity participates, raises awareness of the
fundamental interconnection of nature and culture.

• Patrick Geddes understood that such a participatory

worldview informed by detailed knowledge about the
ecological, social, geological, cultural and hydrological conditions of the local region
would be instrumental in facilitating the emergence of sustainable human societies
uniquely adapted to their particular region.
His works

• Tel-Aviv (Israel)

• The Geddes plan for Tel Aviv was the first master city plan for Tel Aviv.

• It was designed in 1925-1929 by the Scottish city planner Sir Patrick Geddes.

• This program designed the center of Tel Aviv and the area now known as “old north”.

• In 1925 Patrick Geddes was commissioned to design a master plan for the city of Tel
Aviv.

• Tel Aviv turned out to be the only example of one of Geddes plans been built largely
as he envisaged and is a good example of an early planned city.
• It was designed to be an extension of the much older neighbouring Arabic port town
Jaffa to the south and a home for the increasing population of the Jews emigrating
from other parts of the world.

• The principals he employed for the city were strikingly similar to what we now know
as New Urbanism ides of planning-an emphasis was places on pedestrians as opposed
to motor car traffic, a sense of community and civic life was encouraged through the
use of town squares and abundant planting of greenery provided significant focus on a
minimal environment footprints.

• Private automobile was minimised and the city wad envisaged on a pedestrain-
scale.This neighbourhood identity has been crucial in the success of Tel Aviv as a
city.

Examples of conurbation:

• New York:

• The expansive concept of the New York metropolitan area centered on New York
city York state, New Jersey,connecticut and Pennsylvania, with an estimated
population of 21,961,994 in 2007.

• Approximately one-fifteenth of all U.S residents live in greater New York City area.

• This conurbation is the result of several central cities whose urban areas have merged.

• United Kingdom:

• Industrial and housing growth in the United Kingdom during 19th and early 20
century produced many conurbations.

• Greater London is by far the largest urban area and is usually counted as a
cconubaration in statistical terms, but differs from the others in the degree to which it
is focused on a single central area.

• I n mid -1950s the green belt was introduced to stem the further urbanisation of the
countryside in UK.

• The list below shows the most populous urban areas in the UK as defined by the
Office for National Statistics.

• The greater London urban area contains the whole of London, but ones definition
divides London into large number of smaller locaties of which the largest is Croydon.
 Population dynamics In UK.

Importance of theory in today’s world: Constellation theory:

Maharashtra case study.
• Mumbai –Economic and capital city.

• Nashik –Religious city.

• Aurangabad –Administrative city.

• Nagpur –Political city.

• Pune –Educational importance city.

• Since all the five factors necessary for the development of a region are divided with
five different places the administration of that region has a gradual progressing path.

• Maharashtra state has gained prime importance for the country in the last few decades
in spite of being formed in the early 60’s, contributing 15% to country’s industrial
output and 13.3%GDP.

• The distance between the cities ranges in 100-300k making transportation,

connectivity, and inter-dependency prosper within the state.

• Maharashtra is divided into 6 revenue divisions, which are further divided into 35
districts.

• These 35 districts are further divided into 109 sub divisions of the districts and 357
Talukas.

• The admistrational aspect of Maharashtra is quite a unique factor since 6 divisions are
set up as a network working together to form a well efficient and working
governance.