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Geddes in India

Geddes was interested in India long before he made his first visit there in 1914 with his son, Alasdair. From 1917, Geddes lived in India and wrote a series of detailed town planning reports on at least eighteen Indian cities that were both considerate of local context and tradition and awake to the need for development. His principles for town planning in Bombay demonstrate his views on the relationship between social processes and spatial form, and the connections between the social development of the individual and the cultural and physical environment. They also remain one of his greatest and most celebrated legacies.

Geddes achieved lasting friendship and cooperation with the poet Rabindranath Tagore, dating from the Darjeeling Summer Meeting in 1917. Geddes also held the Chair of Sociology and Civics at Bombay University from 1919 until 1923. Although in many ways a great success, Geddes’ time in India was marred by terrible personal tragedy as his son Alasdair died on active service in France and then a few weeks later Anna died of enteric fever in Calcutta in 1917.

Audrey Dakin, SHBT

Geddes and America

Geddes was an ardent internationalist and always ready to travel and learn from others. He recognised a good idea when he heard of the summer schools organised by the American Chautauqua movement and was inspired to organise his own International Summer Schools from 1887 to 1899 based, not in a rural idyll like their American counterparts, but right in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. The schools encompassed the arts and sciences with many international tutors and students and were peppered with excursions, dramatic and musical events:

“A second evening was devoted to a burlesque study of Primitive Man (Very vividly illustrated!) and the Evolution of the Ballad Dance – a feast of fun which those who saw are not likely to forget; nor will the picturesque scene in the quaint old common-room of University Hall, Riddle’s Court, with its grotesque disguises, prettily costumed dancers, and ring of laughing spectators, quickly fade away from remembrance.”

He first visited America in 1899 and was so taken that he returned later that year with his wife, Anna. He describes the warm reception he received: ‘People are moving fast in thought, and are more ready for what I have to say than at home; their own thought too, is often more congenial and complimentary than I find at home’.

But perhaps his greatest American legacy is left by his friendship with Lewis Mumford, the eminent critic, sociologist and historian. The two did not meet until 1923, although they had been corresponding for close on five years by that time. Mumford reflected deeply on Geddes’ ideas and acknowledged openly the ‘intellectual debt’ he owes to his ‘master’. Mumford’s writings are viewed as key texts by many thinkers on technology and the environment, such as EF Schumacher.

Audrey Dakin, SHBT

#lewis mumford #patrickgeddes #america

Geddes and the Power of 'Generalist' Thinking

Patrick Geddes was a wide-ranging thinker and I have always advocated the importance of that generalism, not just for Geddes but for all of us. Crucially, my task has been to remind people that Geddes’ generalism was founded on a developed Scottish intellectual tradition of major cultural value, what George Davie called ‘the democratic intellect’. That tradition deserves to be properly valued again.

Geddes himself put it this way: ‘Breadth of thought and a general direction are not opposed to specialised thought and detailed work. The clear thinker realises that they are complementary and mutually indispensible.’ [quoted by Jacqueline Tyrwhitt in Patrick Geddes in India; page 66.]

As we stumble from financial to ecological crisis and back again, the value of Geddes’ Scottish generalist view could hardly be clearer. I would argue indeed that Geddes’ generalism didn’t simply allow him to look for sustainable solutions, whether cultural or ecological, it actually impelled him to look for those solutions and to see them as linked. For Geddes, any sustainable place could only continue to be so if it took both its heritage and its ecology seriously. And for Geddes, appropriate action in the present, in the interests of the future, depended on an in-depth, generalist understanding of what had happened in the past. That was the essence of his thinking whether applied to ecology, cultural revival or planning, the crucial point being, of course, that he saw all these activities as illuminating one another.

So my aim in my advocacy of Geddes has been to complement other perspectives by drawing attention to the Scottish intellectual tradition of which he was part. In doing so, I have also drawn attention to the continuing relevance of that tradition of generalist thinking, and of the visual thinking that accompanies it. By taking heed of this aspect of our own intellectual heritage we may look in a more informed way at the issues that face us, whether cultural, educational or environmental.

Murdo Macdonald HRSA

Professor of History of Scottish Art

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

University of Dundee

Help us raise funds to grow the Patrick Geddes library in Edinburgh http://bit.ly/1papOSU

Geddes and the 'Precipitous City'

I’m sure, like me, many of you have nipped in to Riddles Court from time to time, to show visitors the crazy staircase swerving up between the dark tenements. I’m sure you’ve admired Ramsay Garden from Princes Street, or the Outlook Tower, floating over town. It’s all too easy to see them as part of an ersatz magic kingdom; but they’re not: they are the germs of Geddes’ urban revolution whose effects were felt at the time as far afield as Japan, and can still be felt over a century later, back where they started.

With the exception of six months, I’ve lived my whole working life on the Royal Mile, and since I arrived here more than twenty years ago, it’s largely been Patrick Geddes who showed me how: how to get neighbours to talk about cleaning the stairs, how to make a garden out of barren concrete; how to see the city at many scales, from the bubblegum on the pavement to the horizon of the Pentlands, and beyond, to its relationship with other cities, and other landscapes; and not just how to see it, but how to help others to see it, and in seeing, value it.

Geddes, and the precipitous city to which he moved so precipitously more than a hundred years ago, aren’t just relics of the past. They shape the cities we live in now, and challenge all of us to live better lives in them.

Ed Hollis, Edinburgh College of Art

Author of 'The Secret Lives of Buildings: from the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in 13 stories

Help us raise funds to grow the Patrick Geddes library in Edinburgh http://bit.ly/1papOSU

Geddes and Tagore

Sir Patrick Geddes was, in his lifetime, simply known as ‘The Professor’ for his intellectual prowess and meticulous scholarly approach to all disciplines. He was a polymath, a true Renaissance man, internationally acclaimed for his breadth of knowledge, his contribution to society and to education and his internationalism. He was decades before his time, advocating interdisciplinary studies, conservation architecture and the necessity of establishing international universities for effective Knowledge Exchange.

Geddes provided town plans for around 50 Indian towns and cities on invitation, which underscore his conservation architect’s knowledge and foresight. The Indian Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, invited Geddes to provide plans for his international university, Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan, which Geddes did. Geddes, in turn, invited Tagore to be President and his friend, the botanist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, to be the Vice President of the Indian College which he established at Montpellier, adjacent to the Scots College, which both friends accepted with grace and pleasure. Geddes was effectively a catalyst for bringing the West and East together at a time when the world was dominated by colonial powers and faced with conflict.

Professor Bashabi Fraser, MA, PhD

Joint Director, Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs)

Edinburgh Napier University

Help us raise funds to grow the Patrick Geddes library in Edinburgh http://bit.ly/1papOSU

Geddes and The Evergreen

It would be a strange learning centre that didn’t have a library at its core, and the Patrick Geddes Centre for Learning at Riddle’s Court is no exception. But Geddes’s peculiar approach to learning should be recognised – and books put firmly in their place.

His own learning began in his father’s garden in Perth, and the garden, as laboratory and lecture theatre, became the primary source of many of his projects and ideas – and it was where a good deal of his teaching was done.

Late in life he wrote for his old school magazine:

Don’t be satisfied with lessons, or even with books, delightful as they are... see all you can of the world for yourself... be up and doing, observing, questioning, searching.

The Word Bank also knows where ‘book learning’ comes in. Its publication of the first ‘Evergreen’ since Geddes produced his last one in 1896 – from the same Riddles Court – has one purpose: to encourage people to look afresh at their own place, its history, its current life – and what it will take to make it a better environment for this and future generations.

The Evergreen: A New Season in the North is published by The Word Bank on October 1st, 2014.

http://eotdt.org/the-evergreen

To join the campaign to grow the Patrick Geddes library please visit http://bit.ly/1nHSO4V

#patrickgeddes #garden #evergreen #riddlescourt

Join our Indiegogo Campaign to grow the Patrick Geddes library

Here is a little animation for the Indiegogo campaign, lovingly created by Martin Kay of BOLD. Follow our progress http://igg.me/at/patrickgeddeslibrary

Why Patrick Geddes?

The Scottish Historic Buildings Trust like a challenge and are used to working on buildings that no commercial developer would look at – derelict buildings or those blighted by their surroundings. The bottom line for us is that the building must be important and that any end use delivers public access and community benefit.

Riddle’s Court was at crisis point in 2008, needing major repairs and very little used. Instantly, we knew that this was one for us – a building so important it was used as the venue for a banquet by James VI, and also associated with great thinkers like David Hume and Patrick Geddes.

Geddes is key to it all – he is a hero to those who know of him in the conservation world – promoting an approach to conservation way ahead of his time. As we have worked on the project we have worked with people from many disciplines who, like us, have been inspired by Geddes – teachers, artists, gardeners, sociologists, environmentalists, poets. Geddes’ approach to education underpins his philosophy and calls for a radical reconsideration of the purpose and ways of learning:

‘The student … is regarded not as a receptacle of information, but as a possible producer of independent thought … Education is not merely by and for the sake of thought, but in a still higher degree by and for the sale of action; hence each course of scientific study is not merely related to those dealing with the other sciences, but in even more immediate degree to the corresponding arts of life … Thought, then, does not exist by and for itself, … It arises from life, and widens in proportion to its range, … Vivendo discimus [By living, we learn]’

The time has come for Patrick Geddes’ ideas to spread more widely, to blossom into public debate and to prompt new thinking on how we all interact with each other and the world around us. This will be the role of the Patrick Geddes Centre. It will be an education and community hub following Geddes’ philosophy that will open at Riddle’s Court once the building repairs and work to improve access and services are complete in 2017.

Yes, this crowdfund is to help us raise money for a library, by which we mean not just a repository of books and articles by and about Geddes, but also a place for people to meet, debate, reflect and to plan for action. Here you can sit in the alcove seats Geddes inserted when the room was used as the University Hall students’ common room – the perfect nooks for curling up with a book, or for striking up a conversation and sharing your insights with your neighbours.

But more than this, it is a chance for us to promote Geddes’ ideas to a wider audience and to inspire more folk to explore for themselves. Geddes said that the essential first spark for any true learning was ‘wonderment’. What a lovely word. We believe this beautiful old building and the new library we are to build here will be places where ‘wonderment’ can be experienced.

If you think so too, please help us, and please spread the word: The campaign will launch on 26th August http://bit.ly/1nHSO4V

Who was Patrick Geddes?

Patrick Geddes was a man of diverse interests and talents. Today he is probably best known as a town planner. However, he has also been described as a biologist, sociologist, conservationist, educationist, and ecologist.

Geddes focused on improving the living conditions in his local environment and was also a figure of international importance. He travelled widely and corresponded with key thinkers and writers of the time such as Charles Darwin, Mahatma Gandhi and Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.

His aim was 'to see life whole', and to achieve a better understanding of human beings in their natural, built, and social environments. His ideas and concerns about the environment, education, and conservation are still as relevant today as they were in his own time.

(excerpt taken from National Library of Scotland http://www.nls.uk/learning-zone/politics-and-society/patrick-geddes)

He had a strong view of education and was opposed to learning by rote and to the excessive emphasis on the three Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic). He favoured, rather, the three Hs (heart, head and hand) that is, an interest-led open minded education keeping the children indoors only in the mornings and taking them out in the afternoons for practical work in the inner city gardens that he created in the Old Town.

(http://www.patrickgeddestrust.co.uk/pghtedinburgh.htm)

The beginning..... Watch what happens next. 19th August...

#library #patrickgeddes

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