Scotiana

Dear readers,

If you’re familiar with the wonderful city of Edinburgh, you won’t have missed The Outlook Tower, one of its most famous landmarks situated at the top of Edinburgh’s High Street, next to the Castle, but what do you know about Sir Patrick Geddes, the remarkable man behind the creation of this extraordinary museum? We’ll try to know more today, following in his steps from Scotland to France and far beyond. But so vast is the subject that it will not be easy task. 😉

“To sum up Patrick Geddes in a few lines would be impossible…” 

It’s a lovely place situated near our home in Périgord Noir that made me focus a few days ago on Patrick Geddes but so interesting is the story of his life that I’m sure this first post devoted to him today won’t be the last one on our blog!

I’m just beginning my research on Patrick Geddes but I’m spoilt for choice when it comes to finding  reliable sources of information. I have drawn heavily on them to write this post.

Header of Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust website

• Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust

“Many organisations use Patrick Geddes’s name to boost their environmental credentials, but the Memorial Trust has a unique position as the ONLY institution which still has a direct connection back to Geddes himself. We promote the study of living society in its environment according to Geddes’s principles and practice. On our website you will find information about his life, work and lasting legacy.”

(Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

The Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust is an excellent source of information, the best one I think and my favourite too, entirely devoted to the man it celebrates, very well written and documented, full of illustrations and photos. The Trust brings to lifePatrick Geddes, opens up perspectives and tells us everything we need to know to visit the main places of interest linked to him in Edinburgh and elsewhere. The page devoted to the Heritage Trail should prove particularly useful to visitors.

• Scottish Historic Buildings Trust 

Though not entirely devoted to Patrick Geddes, the SHBT is another great source of information about him. Moreover, if you happen to be a lover of old buildings, and there are many of them in Scotland, you will be happy to learn that a number of them are being saved from ruin, restored and preserved in keeping with their history.

“Patrick Geddes, considered to be one of the world’s greatest polymaths, inspired SHBT’s educational philosophy which is imbued in the work that we do was a biologist, a geographer, sociologist, environmentalist, philosopher, town planner, cultural champion, anarchist, and educator, so it’s no surprise he has had a lasting impression on our values.”

( Introduction to Who was Patrick Geddes? a very interesting article published by the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (SHBT), a dynamic and innovative charity which is dedicated to regenerating significant historic buildings for the benefit of others throughout the whole of Scotland).

• Association Patrick Geddes France

That’s a French source of information, and quite interesting too. “Created on 25 February 2017 in Montpellier, the city of the last achievement of Patrick Geddes, the APGF aims to highlight his work and thought and to show its relevance today and in the future.”

PatrickGeddes portrait 2

I must admit that, despite numerous visits to Edinburgh, I haven’t yet visited the Outlook tower and that I still don’t know much about Patrick Geddes. But il n’est jamais trop tard pour bien faire. A visit to the Outlook Tower has already been added on the ever-growing list of our “Itinerary 10” 😉

The little I know about Patrick Geddes I learned from Kenneth White.  No wonder!  These two great personalities have a lot in common, and Patrick Geddes would certainly have embraced the fabulous concept of geopoetics created by Kenneth White.

I like to describe as “beacons of humanity” those people who move humanity forward by courageously committing themselves to an action, whatever that action be,  scientific, artistic, literary, journalistic, or even political. Isn’t the Outlook tower the very embodiment and symbol of Patrick Geddes’s personal commitment?

Cénac et Domme Anne Bécheau 2023

It was not my first idea to write this post about Sir Patrick Geddes but a book I recently came across in a local bookshop changed my mind. It was a recently published book about Domme which is one of the most beautiful villages in France, located in the Périgord Noir region, just a few kilometers from where we live.

Domme’s coat of arms © 2024 Scotiana

Domme panoramic view of the Dordogne valley © 2024 Scotiana

Domme? What’s the connection with Patrick Geddes, you may be wondering? That’s what I’m going to tell you soon. But first let’s try to learn more about that remarkable Scottish man, the perfect polymath, whose creative genius has much contributed to improving life around the world, in Scotland, France and other European countries, in Southern America, India and Palestine…

Biographical notes: a luminous and inspiring trail …

“He just set you on fire with love of this earth and with desire to cleanse it, to beautify and re-beautify it, to build and re-build it…”

(Pheroze R Bharucha, former Geddes student)

Scotland is second to none to create fabulous thematic trails and we love to follow them in search of  Scottish national heroes and heroines, famous artists, poets, writers, philosophers, scientists, past history, legends, ancient stones… in search of Scotland! It’s a never-ending quest!

Following my reading of Alistair Moffat‘s books,  we have already planned to visit some of the sites on the St Cuthbert Trail and, today, I’ve just added on our list of places to go the Patrick Geddes Edinburgh Trail!  Of course, the first thing we’ll do is climb up to the top of the Outlook Tower!

But now, let us try to discover who was Patrick Geddes. It’s a long story to tell and I’ve taken a few notes to begin with…

Early years, a few notes…

• 1832

Janet Stevenson and Alexander Geddes (Patrick’s parents) get married.  Born in Grantown-on-Spey in 1810, Alexander was the son of a shopkeeper and moved to the Glasgow area on the death of his parents. At the age of 15, he enlisted in Paisley in the 42nd Foot, the Royal Highlanders, better known as the Black Watch.

“Janet Stevenson was innately a serious person from Airdrie who worked doing Lowland Scottish tambouring (fine embroidery). Tambouring was notoriously hard on the eyes and the embroiderers traditionally bathed their eyes with whisky as a remedy. Janet’s great grandmother and grandmother were both reputed to have lost their sight as a result.” (On the Trail of Patrick Geddes – Walter Stephen – Luath 2020)

• 1854 (2 October)

Birth of Patrick Geddes (later called Patrick or Pat) in Ballater, a small town situated in the north-east of Scotland. He was the last son of  Janet Stevenson, a regimental teacher, and of Alexander Geddes, a soldier/officer. His father’s regiment was garrisoned in Ballater not far from Balmoral Castle where he probably used to be called upon to advise and assist the royal family in the work on Balmoral Castle, the property Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had recently purchased (1852) after the couple fell in love with the local countryside.

“Nine miles away, at Crathie, was Balmoral Castle. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert first stayed there in 1848. Albert bought it in 1852 and turned himself into an architect, renovating and extending the castle. Geddes, although not a builder, was a competent fellow who could be trusted and was taken on as a kind of Clerk of Works or supervisor. Not a bad outcome for Geddes at all! Although not a job for life.” (On the Trail of Patrick Geddes – Walter Stephen – Luath Press Limited 2020)

• 1857

The Geddes family moves to Mount Tabor Cottage in Perth where Patrick Geddes would soon attend Perth Academy. His early childhood and adolescence spent in the Highlands, in the heart of an open-minded family and in a cosy home surrounded by stunning scenery, were to have a major influence on the direction of his future life.

Kinnoull Hill Tower and River Tay – Wikipedia

The child’s desire of seeing and hearing, touching and handling,
of smelling and testing are all true and healthy hungers,
and it can hardly be too strongly insisted that good teaching begins,
neither with knowledge nor discipline, but through delight.

(Patrick Geddes)

“Captain Geddes and his son enjoyed walks in the countryside, exploring the surrounding hills collecting specimens of wild ferns and flowers for their garden. Patrick developed an interest  in observing nature’s wonders which lasted all of his life. The Tay valley view from nearby Kinnoull Hill was an inspiration for the “Valley Section”.

Patrick Geddes attended the Perth Academy when he was about eight years old. His teachers said that he was an eager but restless pupil. According to biographer Philip Boardman, he was reading eight to ten books every week during this period, rapidly going through the entire school library and the local library as well.”

(Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

“All the children except Patrick had been born abroad while Alexander
was on army service. Robert was born in Dublin in 1839, Jessie (known
as “Mousie” and the one daughter) was born in Corfu in 1841, and John
(known as “Jack”) was born in Malta in 1844. A further boy died in infancy
two years later aboard a troopship to Bermuda. Patrick (always known as
“Pat”) was born in 1854 in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, after his father’s retire‑
ment and shortly before the family settled in Perth. Patrick’s brothers were
soon to leave home: Jack went to New Zealand in 1860 as a coffee and spice
merchant, while Robert went to Mexico in 1864 to work for the London
Bank of Mexico and South America (Stephen 2004, 24).

Patrick Geddes at 15

The absence of the older boys meant that Patrick developed an especially close relationship with his father. Alexander was an Elder in the Free Kirk and as such, he took his religion seriously and gave Patrick a strict religious upbringing. The Sunday bible reading bored Patrick, and there was little music in the house. It was through his father, however, that he was introduced to the library and the world of books, and he became a voracious reader. It was through his father, too, that he acquired his love for the countryside.

Patrick attended Perth Academy, where he was a good but not outstanding student. On leaving school he followed in the footsteps of his brother Robert and took employment as a clerk in the Perth branch of the National Bank of Scotland. This was largely to please his parents, who wished to see him enter a safe and respectable career. In due course, however, he was able to persuade his father that he should be permitted to study botany. For three years he followed a course of self‑education and in 1874 he entered Edinburgh University. ”

(Envisioning Sociology J Scott 2013)

Student years – Main influences and first achievements…

Royal School of Mines in London

Patrick Geddes 1886 portrait

“The university proved uncongenial, and after just one week he decided to transfer to London to study in the
laboratories of Thomas Huxley at the School of Mines in South Kensington.”

(Envisioning Sociology –  Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the Quest for Social Reconstruction J. Scott 2013)

• 1874-1877 (20-23)

Studies at the Royal College of Mines in London under Thomas Henry Huxley, never finishing any degree 😉

A study trip in a marine research establishment in Roscoff  (Brittany France).

“Soon Huxley put Geddes on to individual research, in which he discovered an error in Huxley’s work. Lesser men would have had hysterics but Huxley had Geddes write a paper, illustrated with three plates, which Huxley then presented to the Zoological Society as a correction of his work by a pupil. Huxley now found Geddes a place as a demonstrator at Kew and put him up for the Sharpe Scholarship at University College, London, where he met and was influenced by Darwin and other notables.”

(On the Trail of Patrick Geddes – Walter Stephen – Luath 2020)

• 1877-1879 (23-25)

Patrick Geddes spent the year as a demonstrator in the Department of Physiology in University College London  where he met Charles Darwin in Burdon-Sanderson’s laboratory. While in London, he became acquainted with Comtean Positivism, as promoted by Richard Congreve, and he converted to the Religion of Humanity. He was elected as a member of the London Positivist Society. Later he raised his children to worship ‘Humanity’ following the Positivist system of belief. Several trips abroad (France, Mexico…)

In 1879, while Patrick Geddes (aged 25) was in Mexico, visiting his brother Robert, he was suddenly struck blind and, though transitory, this bout of blindness changed his life. Faced with this terrible ordeal, he managed to take advantage of it to change his way of thinking, of living and apprehending reality. He began to devise what he called a « Thinking Machine », trying to organise his mind more efficiently, something that reminds me of Sherlock Holmes’s method of observation and deduction. Could it be that Conan Doyle (1859-1830) had been influenced when he created his famous character, in whom I also find other similarities? Both men were contemporary… Remember too that Geddes’s mother had also suffered from blindess during his youth and old age…

University-of-Edinburgh

• 1880-1888 (26-34)

During eight years Patrick Geddes lectured in Zoology at Edinburgh University.

In 1886, Patrick Geddes married Anna Morton (1857-1917)

“They lived initially in Gedde’s lodgings in Princes Street before moving into an apartment at 6 James Court in the slum district of the Lawnmarket, where they remained until their move to Ramsay Gardens in 1893.”

“Six months married, Patrick took Anna, pregnant with Norah, from the comfort of their Princes Street apartment to live in James Court, not far from Riddle’s Court. Shoeless children with dirty faces characterized the overcrowded slum that this part of town had become. The Geddeses were on a mission. They started cleaning and painting their new home, making it habitable and attractive, encouraging their neighbour to do likewise. Geddes then started to employ his approach of ‘conservative surgery’ keeping and restoring the best houses “weeding out the worst that surrounded them…widening the narrow closes into courtyards” letting in light and air.”

“Working with the residents he transformed some of the spaces he had cleared into community gardens. Gardens were vital for Geddes, not just as an aesthetic, but as the source of oxygen and life or, as he famously said, “by leaves we live”.”

(Who was Patrick Geddes? SHBT)

Patrick and Anna Geddes had three children : Norah (1887) who would become active in Gedde’s Open Spaces projects and married the architect and planner Frank Charles Mear, Alasdair (1891)  who was killed in 1917 during WWI and Arthur (1895)

University-of-Dundee-Campus

• 1888-1918 (34-64)

Geddes worked as a Professor of Botany at the University of Dundee.

In 1888, Geddes’s friend Martin White helped him to obtain a chair of botany at the University of Dundee. A part time job there allowed him to  carry on his work in Edinburgh.

“From 1897, Geddes and his family had been spending more and more time away from Edinburgh. While working at Dundee, Geddes took up residence during his summer teaching terms in Newport-on-Tay, across the river and to the south of the city. When not teaching, he spent much of his time at Crauford, a country house at Lasswade just outside Edinburgh”

1899-1900 : much time spent abroad – two long visits to the United States

1917 : a very sad and tragic year for the Geddes family : during a visit to India Anna fell ill with typhoid fever and died † (aged 60), not knowing that their son Alasdair had been killed in action in France.

• 1924 (70)
  

Returning to Europe, Patrick Geddes set up Le College des Écossais  in Montpellier, where he was able to promote his ideas on a liberal education to an international clientele.

• 1928 (74)

2nd marriage with Lilian Brown. Lilian was fifteen years younger than Patrick.

• 1929 (75)

Domme: Patrick and Lilian Geddes bought a property there including a derelict windmill.

• 1932 (78)

Patrick Geddes died in Montpellier on 17 April” In 1932 he returned to London to accept his second offer of a knighthood. Owing to King George’s illness, he did not receive the accolade until 25 February. In London’s atmosphere he contracted an illness and returned to Montpellier, where he died on 17 April.

Thus he was Sir Patrick Geddes for only 52 days.” (Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

An enlighted mind behind Patrick Geddes’s great designs…

“Cities in the past, at their very heart, contained a special place where their gods, ideals and aspirations dwelled. The Parthenon in Athens, the Roman Forum, the great cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Human spirit, even in a secular society, still needs this sacred space for reflection and contemplation, a place to ponder the imponderable, to think the unthinkable.

Geddes thought that such a place for Edinburgh should be in its very heart, in the Old Town.

The Edinburgh Outlook Tower: a “beacon”, like a symbol, emblematic of Sir Patrick Geddes’s work !

Edinburgh Castle Hill the Outlook Tower © 2015 Scotiana

“The original Outlook Tower in Edinburgh was Geddes’ physical embodiment and exposition of his ideas, drawing together the complex strands of his thinking in an exhibition space which was also an urban laboratory and research centre. The Trust’s origins are closely linked to the Outlook Tower, so it is appropriate that our website offers a virtual 21st century reinterpretation, setting out the key elements of his philosophy.”

Edinburgh Old town camera obscura – Wikipedia

“In answer to the need for a special place in the heart of the Town, Geddes bought the Outlook Tower in 1892. He did not design the Outlook Tower; it had in fact previously been occupied by an optician and still contained optical instruments, but its location at the top of the Royal Mile with a panoramic view over the whole region appealed to him from the outset. From then onwards it became the headquarters and keystone of all his activities in Britain – a hub for the Summer meetings; an Index Museum of the Universe; a Sociological Laboratory Home of the old School of Art; Headquarters of “Geddes and Colleagues” publishing venture.”

“The upward structure of the Tower symbolises the human desire to transcend temporal existence and restore the link between heaven and earth. The Outlook Tower became the power house for Geddes’ regeneration of the Old Town of Edinburgh. A visit to the Outlook tower was designed to orient the individual towards ethical ideals conducive to full and active participation in civic life and government of the city.”

Geddes and the Arts

This chapter is particularly detailed and illustrated in the articles published Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust’s website.

Celtic Revival

“The Celtic Revival had considerable impact in the late 19th century, especially in Ireland with the work of Yeats and his contemporaries, but it was felt in other parts of Britain as well. Geddes was the main spokesman for this movement in Scotland seeing the latent qualities of this culture as a rejuvenating force in modern society. At face value it was most evident in the field of literature given that the works of writers and poets of the “Celtic Twilight” outweighed all other material published by “Patrick Geddes and Colleagues”. However, Geddes himself envisaged the movement in more comprehensive terms, believing that Celticism and its traditional links with the Northern landscape would restore a sense of reverence and wonder in the face of nature, providing the basis for a spiritual or cultural regeneration equivalent to the civic one of the earlier slum improvements. The painters of the Old Edinburgh School of Art had a crucial role to play here, depicting the myths and legends of Celtic folklore in murals throughout the houses of the Old Town. Ramsay Lodge, originally a student hall of residence still contains a cycle of murals depicting the “History of the Gad” from ancient to modern times.”

Spiritual History

“The combination of Geddes’ interest in the historical background of a place and his belief in the power of images to communicate complex information gave rise to several unusual projects throughout his life. The two emblems, Arbor Saeculorum and Lapis Philosophorum stand alongside the Valley Section as symbols of the basis and process of his thought. All three were made up as stained glass windows, displayed on the stairs of the Outlook Tower to assist in the interpretation of the various rooms, but the quasi mystical quality of the “Tree” and “Stone” suggest an aspect of his philosophy which is often overlooked. In classical mythology Geddes saw essential truths about nature and the world which did not conflict with his scientific training. Olympus, the book on which he was working at the end of his life, was intended to elaborate this theme. Likewise, in the regional surveys he was as receptive to the merging of history and folklore as to the physical character of the landscape. This was the realm of “Spiritual History”, overlaid and often obliterated by the effects of industrialisation and materialism, but which Geddes hoped to reawaken with images and evocations. “The Masque of Ancient Learning” was the most famous example. Produced in Edinburgh and London these pageants of history were performed by about 65 participants in a series of tableaux interpreting the development of European thought and education.”

(Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

Patrick Geddes stained-glass window The Valley Section

The Stained Glass Panels

“Three stained glass panels, commissioned by Geddes, were preserved by the Trust and are now on display in Riddles Court. (…)

Patrick Geddes was conscious of the need to make people’s lives better through an attractive environment. In all he did art and decoration were important. At Riddles Court, it was a painted ceiling as found in old Scots houses; on the Castle Esplanade the Witches’ Well was modelled under Geddes’ guidance; and the houses in Ramsay Gardens are decorated with wrought iron, gilding and carved figures.

Art was decorative but, with Geddes, also had to get a message across. In his time much use was made of Celtic Art and Art Nouveau, and Geddes used symbolism to educate as well as beautify. The Geddes Trust has preserved three stained glass panels specially commissioned for these buildings. They were designed by John Duncan and may have been exhibited in the Paris Exhibition of 1900.”

(Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

Geddes’s Cities Exhibition

As a showcase for this thinking he developed his Cities Exhibition, which opened in Chelsea in 1910. He advocated ‘civic survey’ with the motto ‘diagnosis before treatment’, encouraging exploring the ‘whole set of existing conditions’ and referencing the needs of local people and their potentialities. He was also developing his regional planning model called ‘The Valley Section’ which illustrated the complex interactions between the environment and human systems.

(Who was Patrick Geddes? Scottish Historic Buildings Trust)

Geddes the internationalist: “Think globally, act locally”

“Geddes went to India in 1915 with his Cities Exhibition at the invitation of Lord Pentland, Governor of Madras, for the purpose of re-planning Indian cities. He applied his method of ‘Conservative Surgery’ based on a ‘Diagnostic Survey’ which he had developed in Edinburgh’s Old Town. This was in contrast to the colonial policies of sweeping clearances carried out in the name of sanitation.”

(Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust)

REVERED IN INDIA

“Few observers have shown more sympathy…with the religious and social practices of the Hindus…”

(Lewis Mumford)

In 1914 as he was writing Cities in Evolution and espousing a philosophy of ‘think globally, act locally’ Geddes was about to step onto the global stage. And, with the work he did in India, he was to act in a very local way indeed, with the needs of people and culture predominant in his plans.

Geddes set out for India with his son Alasdair. Under separate steam sailed the Cities Exhibition as cargo. By the time the cargo ship was nearing Madras, World War I had been declared and it was sunk by enemy fire. Undeterred, father and son reassembled the exhibition: it was displayed at Madras University in 1915.

Geddes is remembered with such reverence in India because his designs considered local context and tradition alongside being aware development needs.

Geddes believed that Eastern philosophy more readily conceived of “life as a whole” therefore “civic beauty in India has existed at all levels, from humble homes and simple shrines to palaces magnificent and temples sublime.”

(Who was Patrick Geddes? Scottish Historic Buildings Trust)

WORK IN PALESTINE

Geddes worked with his son-in-law, the architect Frank Mears, on a number of projects in Palestine. In 1919, he designed a plan for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at the request of the psychoanalyst, Dr. David Eder, who headed the World Zionist Organization’s London Branch. He also submitted a report on Jerusalem Actual and Possible to the Military Governor of Jerusalem in November 1919. In 1925 he submitted a report on town planning in Jaffa and Tel Aviv to the Municipality of Tel Aviv, then led by Meir Dizengoff. The municipality adopted his proposals and Tel Aviv is the only city whose core is entirely laid out according to a plan by Geddes.

(Who was Patrick Geddes? Scottish Historic Buildings Trust)

Final years: the French Connection

MONTPELLIER

Collège des Écossais de Montpellier

This building is inscrit au titre des monuments historiques de la France. It is indexed in the base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,

The College Des Ecossais (Scots College) was founded by Patrick Geddes in 1924 as an international teaching establishment located in Montpellier, in the south of France.

“When coming back in Europe in 1924 after a long stay in India, Geddes decided to settle with his daughter Norah in Montpellier, a city that was already linked with Scotland since the Middle Ages, when it became the European capital of medicine (..)

Il faut cultiver son jardin…

As the Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier, first botanical garden in France, was implemented there in 1593 as part of the medicine faculty, the place had a long-standing tradition in these sciences. Moreover, the biologist Charles Flahault, that Geddes considered the greatest of their times was living there. « The concept of the Scots College as an international students’ Center emerged during Geddes’ first travel to Montpellier in 1890, when invited by his friend Charles Flahault » after « he met the French botanist at the Marine Station of Roscoff in 1878. »

By conceiving it as a place for teaching not only regional culture, geography, town planning, sociology, biology, botany and other sciences, but mainly “Life As a Whole”, Geddes creates there the last of what the French philosopher Thierry Paquot calls PG’s finest invention: the pedagogical garden. “To the end of his life he insisted on teaching outdoors whenever possible, taking his students on long walks into the neighbouring countryside. He was an environmentalist long before the word “environment” became fashionable, and his teachings are increasingly studied and applied today. ”

As he already did years ahead with the original thematic botanic garden he created in the University of Dundee, then dedicated to Shakespeare’s flowers, Geddes dedicates several parterres in that parcel of Mediterranean landscape to the Greek philosophers on both sides of an alley of cypress trees.

So, more than all the garden is for Geddes the ideal place for practicing the wise conclusion of Voltaire’s Candide. « An active, constructive peace is the only one that can compete with war and its glory: action. Therefore, said Geddes, peace means an unending fight against disease and slums, ignorance and economic injustice, against deforestation and waste of natural resources; peace means, both concretely and figuratively, that everyone must cultivate his garden, » il faut cultiver son jardin…” (Wikipedia)

DOMME: 1924-1931 

Domme in Perigord – the windmill © 2024 Scotiana

Le Musée belvédère du Périgord Noir from Cénac et Domme – Anne Bécheau

From Cénac et Domme – Histoire et Chroniques d’un Terroir, a new and fascinating book about two lovely villages situated at a few kilometers from our home,  written by Anne Bécheau, a historian, medievalist, I’ve learned with much interest what brought Patrick Geddes to our charming little corner of the Dordogne and what he intended to do there. It’s not surprising that Patrick Geddes chose such a place as the fortress of Domme to build a new outlook tower for, from its belvedere one can get a magnificent panoramic view of the whole valley of Dordogne and the region is very rich in every way. It is also very popular with the British, who have restored many of the old houses in the area. Some of them, like Patrick Geddes, have dual nationality.

We intend to go and visit the Domme museum. Maybe we’ll learn more about Patrick Geddes who lived  there for some time, alas too little time. It’s a pity  that the “Musée Belvédère” was destroyed.  Many thanks to Anne Bécheau for her very interesting page of Franco-Scottish history. I hope she won’t mind that I used the Musée Belvédère engraving she included in her book and tried to translate her page in my post for Scotiana readers.

• 29 December 1924, Patrick Geddes (aged 70), and his wife Lilian Brown bought buildings and land from the Amouroux family, including a ‘demolished round tower of an old windmill’ and a tennis court.
•  26 November 1931 they donated it to the commune of Domme. This donation was in fact directly entrusted to Paul Reclus, who became President of the Tourist Office in April 1932. Paul Reclus was the nephew of Elisée Reclus, a famous French geographer, writer and anarchist. Kenneth White was a great admirer of this writer and he had acquired the all collection of his books. 😉 A street of Domme is called “Paul Reclus”.

• After Patrick Geddes’s death in Montpellier, on 16 April 1932, Paul Reclus continued the museum project they had imagined together. The so-called ‘Musée Belvédère’ in Domme was inspired by the Edinburgh Tower, a tower museum of geography, physics and the humanities designed along the same lines. Paul Reclus had the ruined tower restored and a large corbelled room built on the lower wall (see the engraving above). Notice how the house nearby, a mushroom-shape house, has been designed in the same style.
• The lower section was 3.5 m high and the upper section 8 m. A roof in the shape of a truncated octahedron, covered in a sort of blue-black tarpaulin, crowned the whole.
• In the large room above was an orientation table divided into four sections. Each segment corresponded to a large window facing one of the cardinal points. A topographical map of the region with the profile of the visible horizon and a map of south-west Europe centred on Domme completed the orientation table. In the centre of the room were two models of the Sarlat region, one geographical, the other geological. A globe and a sphere made by Paul Reclus showed the map of the world by transparency. Visitors were taken from near to far. All around the room were documents relating to various aspects of regional activity: history, prehistory, archaeology, agriculture, industry, literature and art. Small crates contained objects characteristic of Périgord’s past, such as carved flints and engraved bones. Above them were paintings depicting the typical activities of the region.
• Below this large room, two rooms were devoted to books and documents, mainly for young people.
• The museum was inaugurated on 26 September 1937. Then came the war, and Paul Reclus died in 1941. The museum was plundered. On 12 October 1947, the town council ordered its demolition ‘to restore the museum to the windmill it once was’. Some of the museum’s collections were salvaged in 1966 and transferred to the Musée Paul Reclus (now the Musée de l’Oustal).

Books, books, books…

I’ve just bought three books about Sir Patrick Geddes, first to learn more about such a great Scottish personality, second to help me prepare my next posts about him and also our next trip to Scotland in 2025 😉

Published to coincide with the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Geddes on 2 October 2004, this is an impressionistic examination of Geddes’ life, influence and how that influence has waxed and waned – or waned and waxed. Obviously, earlier sources have been drawn upon, but ‘Think Global…’ is not just a rehash of ‘other men’s flowers’ nor is it merely ‘cheap and cheerful’. There are some new angles and re-emphases and there are quite definite contributions to knowledge. Virtually all the illustrations were specially created for the book, or had not appeared in print before in any reasonably accessible text. The contributors have made over their authorial rights to the Trust.

The contents are as follows:
Think Global, Act Local – Walter Stephen
Patrick Geddes – the Life – Walter Stephen
Finding Geddes Abroad – Sofía Leonard
Patrick Geddes: Environment and Culture – Murdo Macdonald
Patrick Geddes: Regional Survey and Education – A Historical Perspective to the 1970s – Kenneth Maclean
A Letter from India – Narayani Gupta
Patrick Geddes – the Legacy – Walter Stephen

New edition 2015: 140pp, 8pp colour plates, 27 b/w illustrations, pub Luath Press 2015. £12.99 ISBN 978-1-910745-09-0

On the Trail of Patrick Geddes – Luath Press 2020

Part of a series of guides following key figures and themes, Walter Stephen explores the life and theories of the Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and urban planner, Sir Patrick Geddes. His renewal work in Edinburgh’s Old Town is as visible and impressive today as it was in the 19th and 20th centuries and his concepts such as ‘Think Global, Act Local’ are just as relevant. The author is an authority on Patrick Geddes and this book forms part of the On the Trail series.

A First Visit to the Outlook Tower Thierry Verdier 2024

I’ve just found this little guide in a bilingual edition which can be very useful when we visit this Edinburgh landmark…

Inside_the_Camera_Obscura,_Edinburgh_-_geograph.org.uk_-_5416605r1

We’re beginning to know a little more about Sir Patrick Geddes now but it’s only a beginning. Some parts of Geddes’s life and different elements of his work will be developed separately later.

Of course, the best thing to do to understand Patrick Geddes better would be to visit the places where he lived and worked in Scotland and in France. For those lucky enough to be in Edinburgh why not start with the visit of the Outlook Tower which is like a key opening onto Patrick Geddes’s entire universe? As for us, we’ll have to wait until next year and, in the meantime we can dream but doesn’t every journey begin with a dream? 😉

” Imagine ascending Geddes’ Outlook Tower, looking out over Edinburgh, then letting your eyes drift out over the Forth to the hills and the world beyond, and imagine other cities with golden domes, temple roofs, interacting with this man under hotter suns…”

Enjoy! 😉

Á bientôt. Mairiuna