Patrick Geddes-Introduction , works , contribution to planning

Done by , Samiksha ,Sneha ,Puvizhi,Oviya,Naailah

Who Was Patrick Geddes?• Patrick Geddes was a Scottish biologist, biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner .

•known also for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and education. • He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term conurbation.

• He was also known as father of master town planning

• First link to sociological concepts into town planning

• Geddes believed planners should have a strong grounding in, and work with, the unique attributes of the places they were planning for, which came to be expressed in his motto, “Survey Before Plan.”

Who Was Patrick Geddes?• A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities,

large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area. A conurbation can be confused with a metropolitan area. A metropolitan area consist of a central city and its suburbs, while a conurbation consists of adjacent metropolitan areas that are connected with one another by urbanization.

• While he thought of himself primarily as a sociologist, it was his commitment to close social observation and ability to turn these into practical solutions for city design and improvement that earned him a "revered place amongst the founding fathers of the British town planning movement“

• He believed in socio-evolution: Societies with "universal Education which would improve their surroundings; these would upgrade society, which would then improve the surroundings, and so on.

Who Was Patrick Geddes?

• While he thought of himself primarily as a sociologist, it was his commitment to close social observation and ability to turn these into practical solutions for city design and improvement that earned him a "revered place amongst the founding fathers of the British town planning movement“

• Patrick Geddes, who was highly influenced by earlier theorists such as Herbert Spencer and Frederic Le Play, expanded upon earlier theoretical developments that lead to the concept of regional planning.

Geddes Timeline

His Influences Geddes' ideas had worldwide circulation: his most famous

admirer was the American urban theorist lewis mumford who claimed that "Geddes was a global thinker in practice, a whole generation or more before the Western democracies fought a global war".

Geddes also influenced several British urban planners, the Indian social scientist Radhakama Mukerjee and the Catalan architect Cebria de montoliu (1873–1923) as well as many other 20th century thinkers.

Geddes' work on regional surveys, cultural evolution, and urban sociology has become even more noticed since his death

His Outlook Tower and view on life serves as a catalyst for today's sustainable city movement.

His Influences

“Geddes’ great achievement has been the making of a bridge between Biology and Social Science,” wrote his biographer Lewis Mumford

He saw the city as a series of common interlocking patterns, ‘an inseparably interwoven structure’, like to a flower. He criticized the tendency of modern scientific thinking to specialization. In his ‘Report to the H.H. the Maharaja of Kapurthala’ in 1917 he wrote:

“Each of the various specialists remains too closely concentrated upon his single specialism, too little awake to those of the others. Each sees clearly and seizes firmly upon one petal of the six-lobed flower of life and tears it apart from the whole.”

The master plan of Tel Aviv (Israel) : Geddes planned the city in

1925 so that it would answer its residents’ spiritual and material needs by taking into account factors ranging from climate and social structure to income.

He believed in fostering human interaction by bringing people together naturally in public places, such as squares, parks and streets; he did not believe in separating the commercial centre from the residential areas else the former become ghost town during non- working hours.

Residential buildings were to be low rise, airy, aesthetically pleasing and inexpensive.

The master plan of Tel Aviv (Israel) :

Tel Aviv is now frequently referred to as a “ Living Museum” of Modern Architecture.

UNESCO designed Tel Aviv (White city) as a world heritage site in 2003.

It is Israel's 2nd largest city (after Jerusalem) and the country’s business and cultural center.

At present “ Traffic congestion” is the main problem of this city.

Works in India Between 1915 and 1919 Geddes wrote a series of

"exhaustive town planning reports" on at least eighteen Indian cities, a selection of which has been collected together in Jacqueline Tyrwhitt’s Patrick Geddes in India (1947)

 He held a position in Sociology and Civics at Bombay University from 1919 to 1925.

His principles for town planning in Bombay demonstrate his views on the relationship between social processes and spatial form. They included: ("What town planning means under the Bombay Town Planning Act of 1915")

• Preservation of human life and energy, rather than superficial beautification.

• Conformity to an orderly development plan carried out in stages.

• Purchasing land suitable for building.• Promoting trade and commerce.

Works in India

• Preserving historic buildings and buildings of religious significance.

• Developing a city worthy of civic pride, not an imitation of European cities.

• Promoting the happiness, health and comfort of all residents, rather than focusing on roads and parks available only to the rich.

• Control over future growth with adequate provision for future requirements

Patrick Geddes-understanding of cities

-Patrick Geddes understanding of cities is very deep than many of his contemporaries.-He was very anxious to draw a plan for solving the problems.-His firm belief is that the city as a living organism always evolves.-Its growth and decay are natural.

Patrick Geddes – Planning concepts

-Rural development, Urban Planning and City Design are not the same and adopting a common planning process is disastrous.-”Conurbation” -waves of population inflow to large cities followed by overcrowding and slum formation, and then the wave of backflow – the whole process resulting in amorphous sprawl, waste, and unnecessary obsolescence.

-The sequence of planning is to be: -Regional survey -Rural development -Town planning -City design-These are to be kept constantly up to-date-He gave his expert advice for the improvement of about 18 major towns in India.

Patrick Geddes – Regional survey

-In this survey he tried to develop new ways of observing and analyzing cities.-It involved collection of all known data of a city and its region such as its origin, geography , climate, traditions and present socio – economic structure.-It formed a storehouse of information and helped in preparing a long term practical strategy for social development.-He was the first one to create the idea of region in city planning.VALLEY SECTION

Patrick Geddes – Valley SectionIn his valley section he clearly showed the relationship between of folk , place and work.

folk space Work-He believed that an urban planner should be a generalist than specialist knowing fairly well about all disciplines. -In his “Valley section” he showed that all the natures ocupations have a place.-Starting from the head of the valley section the hunter and miner , the woodman , the shepherd , the poor and rich peasant and the fisherman have works which are closely related to their surroundings.-The geographical space shapes the folk and the work, and the people with their work shape the environment. Thus there is a continuous struggle between environment and society.

Patrick Geddes – Valley Section

Miner

Woodmen

Hunter

Shepherds

Poor peasants

Rich peasants

Fishermen

At the head of the valley section , first activity can be hunting , until woodman and miner comes in .Next to forestland comes the pasturages and its shepherds. Next on the higher and poor soils comes the struggling peasant followed by rich peasant on the deeper rich land down the valley. In the end we have the fishermen near sea.-This is the evolution of human civilization in the valley section.-Understanding regions past history and present conditions help for better socio- economic and cultural organization.

source: Team 10 Primer, MIT Press second edition 1974 (first edition 1968)

THE DOORN MANIFESTO

Patrick Geddes-There are always problems in the cities which need immediate attention such as growing slums , increasing traffic , urban renewal etc.- To deal with these he developed a technique called Conservative surgery.

-Congestion is always high at intersections.

-He wanted to create smooth traffic flows by pulling down carefully selected houses which are old.

- Public participation is another important concept that he stressed.

On the left, you can see the colonial government's plan for wiping out most of this residential neighborhood in order to improve its housing and reform its street plan into a 'modern' grid (overlaid on map). Geddes showed how the government's objectives could be achieved with far less time and money by careful attention to detail—a close look at the actual situation on the street.

The little illustration above shows one of his proposals