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.