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~ "A #city is more than a place in space, it is a #dramaintime " - #patrickgeddes (at Chandni)

A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time #patrickgeddes #osaka #japan #cityscape #aventurasdeamigos

#aventurasdeamigos #osaka #patrickgeddes #cityscape #japan

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 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