Patrick Geddes and Town Planning

A Critical View

Noah Hysler-Rubin

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317796480
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Architektur
• Sous-sujet: Architekturgeschichte

Patrick Geddes is considered a forefather of the modern urban planning movement. This book studies the various, and even opposing ways, in which Geddes has been interpreted up to this day, providing a new reading of his life, writing and plans.

Geddes' scrutiny is presented as a case study for Town Planning as a whole. Tying together for the first time key concepts in cultural geography and colonial urbanism, the book proposes a more vigorous historiography, exposing hidden narratives and past agendas still dominating the disciplinary discourse. Written by a cultural geographer and a town planner, this book offers a rounded, full-length analysis of Geddes' vision and its material manifestation, functioning also as a much needed critical tool to evaluate Modern Town Planning as an academic and practical discipline. The book also includes a long overdue model of his urban theory.

Part I
The Planning Historiography of Patrick Geddes

Chapter 1
The Town Planner as a Miracle Worker

Patrick Geddes, 1854–1932

I. Early endeavors

Three biographical sketches were published about Geddes during his lifetime, all tending to his role as a town planner or at least a re-maker of the environment.¹ But during his time, Geddes was more commonly applauded for other accomplishments; his role as a planner and his overall contribution to town planning were not clear.² Geddes’ early urban work and related activities in Edinburgh were described by his colleagues and friends as part of his overall approach to the city and its dwellers, and considered as part of a social, cultural, and physical revival.³ Geddes’ early work in London was reported only by his supporters.⁴

Many of Geddes’ achievements were related to the Outlook Tower, described in 1927 in the American Journal of Sociology as the basis for “the Edinburgh School” of British Sociology.⁵ Yet to many, the carefully linked exhibits seemed a random jumble.⁶ Amelia Defries, Geddes’ disciple and first biographer commented sadly, “the pity is that few of his fellow-citizens and sometimes even of his collaborators – have yet understood the Tower or its work; and scanty means and membership thus leave it but a beginning of what it seeks to be.”⁷

II. Doubtful turning points⁸

Beginnings in Britain

Reviews described Geddes’ first official task of planning in Dunfermline as comprehensive beyond precedent, acknowledging the planning report’s imagination and enthusiasm and marveling at its specificity as a utopia.⁹ But, as Helen Meller claims, the popular press tended to misunderstand the work. Moreover, many of Geddes’ colleagues were baffled.¹⁰ T. C. Horsfall, “despite his record of being a campaigner for bringing Art and Beauty to the city,” refused to review it.¹¹ Ebenezer Howard was highly appreciative, “though there may have been a barb,” says Meller, “in his comment that a copy of the report should be in every public library,” presumably thinking it was inspirational rather than practical.¹² Charles Booth and Walter Crane highlighted the artistic value of Geddes’ suggestions and the importance of conservation raised in his “charming volume.”¹³ Another critic simply asked to see the extension of the projects to the population itself.¹⁴

Patrick Abercrombie described the first International Town Planning Conference held by RIBA in 1910 as Geddes’ first town planning emergence into public after having “long been subterraneously at work.”¹⁵ The Town Planning Review marked out Geddes’ unique contribution amongst many other participants.¹⁶ According to Philip Boardman, the London newspapers recognized that in Geddes’ gallery lay the keynote of the whole international exhibition: The Standard, for example, told its readers to head straight for the Edinburgh room if they would understand what town planning was all about.¹⁷

Yet Geddes’ approach was ambivalent and somewhat problematic. In a later account of the exhibition Abercrombie described how Geddes, in “that nightmare of complexity, the Edinburgh Room,” shattered the idea that town planning was a simple thing, composed of basic elements. In an often quoted passage Abercrombie accuses Geddes of torturing his crowds.¹⁸ Following the conference, Geddes had secured support from the leaders of the British town planning movement for his exhibition; but invitations from large cities were not forthcoming and it was only displayed in Edinburgh, in Dublin, and in Belfast.¹⁹

The exhibition in Dublin in 1912 was mainly an impetus to the competition of the planning of the city in 1914. The plan and later exhibition were followed closely by the Town Planning Review, mentioning the prize offered by Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and naming Geddes as one of the three adjudicators. Geddes’ great Housing and Town Planning Exhibition was described as part of the overall Civic Exhibition.²⁰ The Irish experience, claims Meller, was crucial in establishing Geddes’ position in the British town planning movement not the least because of his association with Raymond Unwin and Patrick Abercrombie.²¹ When the exhibition was lost in sea, Defries wrote: “Many of us considered that this would be the end of Patrick Geddes. His name was so little known to the general public that it had never occurred to me that he had any real following… to whom did it matter that Geddes’ Exhibition of his ideas was destroyed?”²²

Town planning in India and in Palestine, 1914–25

Geddes’ work in India received great local press coverage, reporting mainly about the town planning exhibitions and accompanying series of lectures and calling the public to take advantage of the great and unique occasion, as in “a carnival of fine speeches… Professor Geddes unravels the town-planning mysteries to an admiring audience.”²³ “Geddes has come out to India to give us the benefit of his experience of towns and cities and men in Europe, America and Asia, and the huge collection of photographs and drawings …”²⁴ In Britain, many articles in the new planning magazines were devoted to town planning in the colonies in general and in India in particular, describing work of local improvement trusts and municipal committees; none of these mentioned Patrick Geddes or his work.²⁵

In Palestine Geddes’ work was celebrated by magazines for bringing modern ideas into the building of the old–new homeland.²⁶ Unlike his work in India, though, it also drew attention in Britain, where Geddes was reported as working “to plan toward the development of Palestine as a land flowing once more with milk and honey,”²⁷ introducing the newest innovations in town planning into Palestine while also preserving its unique traits.²⁸ “They who hesitated to follow his suggestions for rebuilding Edinburgh, Dundee, or Aberdeen,” claimed Boardman, “heartily approved when it was a question of Jerusalem.”²⁹ The Garden Cities and Town Planning Journal described the Jewish settlements in Palestine as an ideal return to an agricultural mode of life, a perception later strengthened by others.³⁰ The Egyptian Gazette described Geddes’ vision of Haifa as a Town Beautiful.³¹ Flattering and enquiring letters came also from Charles Zueblin in America and Thomas Adams in Canada.³² The planning of the Hebrew University was closely followed and its opening ceremony described as an event arousing unusual interest, “not only among Jews but also among all civilised people’s.”³³ Amelia Defries later wrote of Geddes’ work in Jerusalem, “do I exaggerate when I say that… it seems that Patrick Geddes is helping to lay the foundation of living faith – based upon the realities of science – and elastic for development and discovery?”³⁴

III. Geddes’ controversial theory and tools

General theory and publications

Geddes’ “Draft Plan for a National Institute of Geography,” published in 1902, was received with much interest and sympathy; yet it was also thought to be impractical and possibly redundant.³⁵ Between 1904 and 1906 Geddes introduced his overall theory of Civics.³⁶ Booth and Howard, claims Meller, completely misunderstood it.³⁷ Civics was declared not inclusive, ignoring the effects of the inequality of wealth as well as the rights and duties of citizens; a regional survey was not enough.³⁸ Geddes was accused of neglecting to consider the formation of cities in new countries and disregarding the implications of modern industry.³⁹ On the other hand, Civics was criticized as too detailed and too burdening for the sociologist.⁴⁰ Many protested against Geddes’ implied environmental determinism, calling out the danger of confusing resemblance with relationship or the lack of reciprocity between the society and environment.⁴¹ When Geddes later introduced his “charming diagrams,” his arguments were apparently even more problematic, and confused his audience.⁴² The Valley Section was accused of outright determinism and the practical outcome of Civics was, again, not clear.⁴³ When the Museum plan was introduced in 1907 Geddes was commended for paying attention to the future by supplying an institution for urban conservation.⁴⁴ Giovanni Ferraro claims that the unease that professionals felt towards Geddes’ suggestions can be seen in the response to a paper he read in 1921 at the Town Planning Institute.⁴⁵

When Cities in Evolution was finally published in 1915 it was received as an interesting sample of writing about town planning, yet not necessarily a very useful one.⁴⁶ “Prof. Geddes would make the study of regional geography fundamental with a view to town planning, but he does not attempt to show in detail how by this means the end is to be achieved… he has not distinctly asked himself how much wider than mere regional survey must be the outlook of one who would explain the past and forecast the fortunes of cities …”⁴⁷ In 1915 Geddes also started editing, together with Victor Branford, the series Making of the Future, elaborating many of his ideas as tools for peaceful social reconstruction. It was not considered to be related to town planning. The Coming Polity (1920) was thus described: “the authors seem to move in a dream world under the guidance of a science and a history of their own invention… This is not science. The book might be described as the result of an effort on the part of belated mystics to create a ‘regionalistic’ religion.”⁴⁸

Geddes’ immediate influence on planning

During Geddes’ many years of absence from Edinburgh, the Outlook Tower had fallen on difficult times and Arthur, his son, was working to keep the legacy alive.⁴⁹ Finally, in 1927 Patrick Abercrombie noted that Geddes, “the magician of the enchanted Edinburgh Tower,” is being recognized as the practical man who showed how to build town planning on a sure foundation, admitting that all the leaders of the planning movement base their practice on his theory.⁵⁰ The reg...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Interpreting Geddes, a Contemporaneous Task
• Part I: The Planning Historiography of Patrick Geddes
• Part II: Geddes and Geography
• Part III: Planning in the Colonies
• Part IV: Postcolonial Scrutiny
• Appendix: Geddes' Urban Scheme
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Works of Patrick Geddes
• Index