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