Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. What is conservative surgery?

Conservative surgery, ‘surgery in which as much as possible of a part or structure is retained’,
often ‘an equally effective alternative to radical surgery.

Geddes championed a mode of planning that sought to consider "primary human needs" in every
intervention, engaging in "constructive and conservative surgery rather than the "heroic, all of a piece
schemes popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He continued to use and advocate for
this approach throughout his career.

2. Which are the two cities designed by Patrick geddes?

*In 1925, he submitted a report on town planning in jaffa and Tel Aviv to the municipality of
Tel Aviv, then led by meir Dizengoff. The municipality adopted his proposals and Tel Aviv is
the only city whose core is entirely paid out according to a plan by geddes.

*One more city is EDINBURGH.

3. Explain the planning principle of Patrick Geddes?

• Patrick Geddes was one of the founders of modern town planning.
• He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and sociology.
• He introduce the concept of region and conurbations in the field of architecture and planning.
• Geddes was originator of the idea and technique of Regional survey and City survey.

Principles

• Preservation of human life and energy, rather than superficial beautification.

• Conformity to an orderly development plan carried out in stages.
• Land suitable for building.
• .Promoting trade and commerce.
• Preserving historic buildings and buildings of religious significance.
• Developing a city worthy of civic pride, not an imitation of European cities.
• Promoting the happiness, health and comfort of all residents, rather than focusing on
roads and parks available only to the rich.
• Control over future growth with adequate provision for future requirements.
There are 6 planning principles
1. Outlook tower

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 Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

2. Survey before planning

3. Exhibitions
4. Public participation
5. Geddessian triad
6. Conservative surgery

1. OUTLOOK TOWER

Every city should have a tall tower not only to see the aspects like slums, congestion in street,
Insanitation condition etc, helps to formulate the conserv surgery for future.

2. SURVEY BEFORE PLANNING

Survey including physical,social and economic survey should be conducted in detail to
asses the existing condition before starting the planning process.

3. EXHIBITIONS
Each town should have a permanent town planning exhibition to make the public
understand the need for a plan and the salient aspect of the plan and to get back the
feedback and suggestions.

4. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Geddes addressed the planners to associate closely with public explaining to them each
and every aspect of the plan and inviting them for comments as well as suggestions.

5. GEDDESSIAN TRIAD
Town comprises of people and their society. Hence not to eliminate things like roads,
building, garden and open spaces.

Hence in preparatory phase we must take into consideration, the No and Kind of people
living in town and their requirements.

6. CONSERVATIVE SURGERY
Removing or re-arranging slums, conserve surgery growth.
The organic growth of cities should be controlled by initializing planning byelaws like
a. Zonal regulations.

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b. Height zoning etc.

This can be achieved by “Urban Renewal” by

a. Fixation of project area and action area

b. Survey
c. Identification of problems
d. Moking plans
e. implementation
4. What is conservative surgery and why it is needed?

Conservative surgery, ‘surgery in which as much as possible of a part or structure is retained’,

often ‘an equally effective alternative to radical surgery.

• Geddes championed a mode of planning that sought to consider"primary human needs" in

every intervention, engaging in piece schemes" popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
• To demonstrate the practicality of his ideas and approach. In 1886Geddes and his newly
married wife purchased a row of slum tenementsin James Court, Edinburgh, making it into a
single dwelling. In andaround this area Geddes commenced upon a project of
"conservativesurgery": "weeding out the worst of the houses that surrounded them...widening
the narrow closes into courtyards" and thus improving sunlight and airflow. The best of the
houses were kept and restored. Geddes believed that this approach was both more economical
andmore humane.
• Thus “The conservative surgery” demonstrates how one canaccommodate changes without
bulldozing the large sections of an oldcity for the purpose of development.
• Creating more open spaces/courtyardsBy demolishing dilapidatedStructures
• Retaining the best buildings andrestoring them`

Conservative surgery is required for removing or Re-arranging slums. Geddes believed that
cities should be seen as continuously evolving organisms, setting great worth on the continuity of
tradition and physical characteristics of a place.

5. Explain the contribution of Sir Patrick Geddes. How his thoughts are so
relevant to planning?

1. Tel-Aviv (Israel) The Geddes Plan for Tel Aviv was the first master city plan for Tel Aviv.

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 Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

2. It was designed in 1925-1929 by the Scottish city planner Sir Patrick Geddes. This program
designed the centre of Tel Aviv and the area now known as "Old North".

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

4. The plan he produced was accepted in 1929.

5. Tel Aviv turned out to be the only example of one of Geddes‟ plans being built largely as he
envisaged and is a good example of an early planned city.
6. The area of Tel Aviv originally planned by Geddes makes up approximately 7.5% of the current day
municipality of Tel Aviv and is now known as Tel Aviv’s “Old North”.
7. 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 Jews emigrating from other parts of the world
(predominantly Eastern Europe).
8. Geddes, originally as biologist and sociologist was engaged to design a plan for the new city of Tel
Aviv to be built adjacent to the ancient port town of Jaffa.
9. The principles he employed for the city were strikingly similar to what we now know as New
Urbanism ideas of planning - an emphasis was placed 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 environmental footprint.
10. Private automobile traffic was minimised and the city was envisaged on a pedestrian-scale. This
neighbourhood identity has been crucial in the success of Tel Aviv as a city.
11. Another important aspect of Geddes plan was the use of the “super block,” which was popular in
the early to mid 20th century with its origins in the modernist movement.
12. The main principles was to create extra large blocks bounded by major rather than minor roads,
and have them threaded with narrow one way streets designed in such a way to discourage through
traffic.
13. The aim of these superblocks was to foster community and a sense of civic life within them. In
order to achieved this it was planned that at the centre of each block was meant to be a central public
space (a garden or public building). In reality the commercial factors resulted in few of these central
squares being captured for public use.
14. He mainly concentrated on creation of ‘green’ environment, throughout the city, but especially in
the residential areas, by bringing specific attributes of the country into the urban context. Thus, the city
is designed with a careful attention to the open green areas, both private and public.

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15. All urban scales are addressed – from a consideration of the type of plantings preferable for the
city, to be used in private gardens, to the design of urban parks, boulevards, and even a botanical
garden

WORK IN INDIA

• Geddes' work in improving the slums of Edinburgh led to an invitation from Lord
Pentland(then Governor of Madras) to travel to India to advise on emerging urban planning
issues, in particular, how to mediate "between the need for public improvement and respect for
existing social standards".
• For this, Geddes prepared an exhibition on "City and Town Planning". The materials for the
first exhibit were sent to India on a ship that was sunk near Madras by the German ship Emden,
however new materials were collected and an exhibit prepared for the Senate hall of Madras
University by 1915.
• According to some reports, this was near the time of the meeting of the Indian National
Congress and Pentland hoped the exhibit would demonstrate the benefits of British rule.
• Geddes lectured and worked with Indian surveyors and travelled to Bombay and Bengal where
Pentland's political allies LordWillingdon and Lord Carmichael were Governors.
• He held a position in Sociology and Civics at Bombay University from 1919 to 1925.
• Between 1915 and 1919 Geddes wrote a series of "exhaustive town planning reports" on at
least eighteen Indian cities, a selection of which has been collected together in Jacqueline
Tyrwhitts Patrick Geddes in India (1947).

His principles for town planning in Bombay demonstrate his views on the relationship between social
processes and spatial form. They included:

1. Preservation of human life and energy, rather than superficial beautification.

2. Conformity to an orderly development plan carried out in stages.

3. Land suitable for building.

4. Promoting trade and commerce. 5.Preserving historic buildings and buildings of religious
significance.

6. Developing a city worthy of civic pride, not an imitation of European cities.

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 Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

7. Promoting the happiness, health and comfort of all residents, rather than focusing on roads and parks
available only to the rich.

8. Control over future growth with adequate provision for future requirements

1. Sir Patrick Geddes emphasized the need for transdisciplinary education as a facilitator of cultural
change.

2. He believed that a society was able to evolve healthily if its people and their livelihood were
adapted to the specific condition of their local region.

3. Geddes saw adaption as two ways:

a. regional cultures are adapting their regional environment to suit

human needs

b. the limits of such adaption are set by the social and ecological conditions of their particular
environment

4. The work of Patrick Geddes can be regarded as an early impulse in the emergence of
ecological planning and design, as well as, ecological economics and bioregionalism.

5. Many of Geddesʼ ideas are still influential today, although not always recognized as
originating from his work.

6. Give a brief description on outlook tower?

Drawing on the scientific method, Geddes encouraged close observation as the way to
discover and work with the relationships among place, work and folk. In 1892, to allow the
general public an opportunity to observe these relationships, Geddes opened a "sociological
laboratory" called the Outlook Tower that documented and visualized the regional landscape.
In keeping with scientific process and using new technologies, Geddes developed an Index
Museum to categorise his physical observations and maintained Encyclopedia Graphicato,
which used a camera obscura to provide an opportunity for the general public to observe their
own landscape to witness the relationships among units of society. The Outlook Tower was
built in Edinburgh's Old Town and continues to be used as a museum.

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 Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

The topmost storey was allotted for visitors to have a broad outlook of the city.The storey below
was allotted for sciences starting from geography , astronomy, history etc.Continued to down
floors having city maps, survey data of Scotland, Great-Britain , Europe and finally the Ground
Floor ended in exhibiting the oriental civilization and general study of man. The Outlook Tower
was built in Edinburgh's Old Town and continues to be used as a museum.

Geddes’ hope was that visitors would exit the Tower with a new perspective on the Scottish
capital and an understanding of how they could play an active role in its future through schemes
for social improvement such as his own. The Outlook tower was a powerful tool in
communicating ideas about the wider context in which cities exist and develop. In the mid-
twentieth century the Tower passed into the hands of the University of Edinburgh, who

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 Planning thoughts and principles of Patrick geddes

subsequently sold the building to its current owners who have turned it into more of a theme park
than Outlook to wider ideas.

As described in Cities in Evolution, Patrick Geddes’ Outlook Tower embodies an approach to

urban planning that maintains currency in planning and design discourse today. Geddes' tower
arranged the history of the city into a vertical array of exhibition spaces while offering a broadened
perspective of the city's condition amidst the lateral spread of the region. In this interdisciplinary
project, we speculate as to how the planning and design community might draw inspiration from
Geddes' work to devise an Outlook for our own times, one that helps people appreciate the interrelated
and rapidly evolving dynamics of climate change and urbanization and motivates them to work
collaboratively toward positive future outcomes.