Valley Section

Patrick Geddes, Valley Section

Patrick Geddes; Chronology

1854: Born at Ballater, West Aberdeenshire, Scotland on 2nd October

1857: Family moves to Perth, Scotland.

1874-1878: Studies Biology under Thomas Huxley at the Royal School of Mines, London

1879: During a scientific expedition to Mexico, Geddes suffers temporary blindness and develops the graphic method using folded squares of paper.

1880-1888: Demonstrator and lecturer at Edinburgh University.

1886: Marries Anna Morton. Begins urban improvement projects and establishes University Hall as a student residence.

1888: Unsuccessfully applies for the Chair of Botany at Edinburgh University.

1888-1919: Holds the Chair of botany at University of Dundee.

1890: Acquires Outlook Tower in Edinburgh to develop as regional museum and ‘sociological laboratory’.

1899-1900: Visits America and meets intellectual luminaries and education leaders in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York.

1904: Publishes ‘City Development: A Study of Parks, Gardens, and Culture- Institutes: A Report to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust’.

1910: Cities and Town Planning Exhibition first displayed.

1912: Declines the offer of a Knighthood

1914: Travels to India at the invitation of Lord Pentland, Governor of Madras, to show the Cities Exhibition and to assist as a town planning consultant.

1915: Publishes ‘Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the study of Civics’.

1917: Geddes’ son is killed in action on the Western Front. Wife Anna dies in Calcutta. Geddes receives the first correspondence from Lewis Mumford.

1919: Commissioned by the Zionist Federation to plan the New Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Geddes is also appointed to the chair of Sociology at the University of Bombay.

1923: Geddes travels to New York and meets Lewis Mumford.

1924: Geddes is taken seriously ill; he travels to Montpellier, France to recuperate. In September of that year he begins work on the college des Ecossais.

1925: Geddes travels to Jerusalem for the inauguration ceremony of the Hebrew University. Lewis Mumford visits Patrick Geddes in Edinburgh.

1932: Awarded Knighthood.

1932: Dies at Montpellier on 17th April.­

Melville Street, Perth

The proposal for Melville Street, Perth is another collaboration between Fergus Purdie and Arthur Watson. The building is the new residence for the artist Arthur Watson, a place where he can work and live. The proposal is located on a tight site which forced the verticality of the design. The external circulation for the building adds a new dimension to the threshold of the buildings private courtyard.

Camera Obscura - Cairngorms

The camera obscura at the Cairngorms, collaboration of architect Fergus Purdie and artist Arthur Watson, is an inspirational piece of architecture that has a significant relationship with it's immediate context. A building too bespoke would be a scar on the scenic mountainside, it is the rustic nature of the building that creates a relationship with the very harsh environment of the site.

The Outlook Tower, Edinburgh

Patrick Geddes, Camera Obscura, Outlook Tower, Edinburgh

"From the high garden, or from one of your tree-top castles, you look out upon everything, you see for miles and miles; but in your dark little caves in the ivy-bank you can sit and dream. Up in your tree-castle you often sit dreaming, of course; and from your hidden cave, through it's ivy curtain, you love to peep; still, in the main, one is the Out-world's Watch-tower, the other the In-world's Gate."

Geddes P., The World Without And The World Within, Sunday Talks With My Children, 1905

Patrick Geddes explains that what he calls the "Out-world" is the world we see around us, every day. He explains to his children that the light from the roof of the outlook tower is a way into the "In-world", our thoughts and memories. The "In-world" is where we begin actively thinking and planning; and then in carrying out our plans we come back into the "Out-world" once again.

As well as being what Geddes calls a "Civic Observatory", the outlook tower is a physical embodiment of this philosophy.

The Outlook Tower, Edinburgh

Spatial sequence diagrams of Edinburgh Outlook Tower.
From the bustle of the Royal Mile to the darkness and introversion of the Camera Obscura.

"From the hard World of Facts to the no less real World of Acts, you can only travel by this "In-World way."

Geddes P., Cities In Evolution, 1915, pg 208

The spatial introversion of the camera obscura represented a threshold into Geddes' "In-world". From this height one can survey the city of Edinburgh from the "Out-world" and immediately afterwards, by entering the dark space, see it from the introverted perspective of the Obscura, i.e. the "In-world".

Geddes used the tower as an educational tool, as a way of showing new perspectives on the city, its hinterland and how these sat in the wider contexts of the Commonwealth and the World.

The Outlook Tower, Edinburgh

"The development of the Outlook Tower was in many ways inseparable from parallel activities that stemmed from Geddes during the 1890's in Edinburgh"
A Most Unsettling Person, Kitchen P. 1975, pg 130

Camera Obscura, Cairngorm Mountains-Scotland

The camera obscura has been designed and built by Architect Fergus Purdie and Artist Arthur Watson. The Dark Chamber sits at the foot of the Cairngorm mountain in the Scottish Highlands. The collaboration between the artist and architect sees a conglomeration of ideas sat within the harsh ever changing elements of the landscape.