Patrick Geddes

Father of modern town planning

( 2 Oct 1854 – 17 April 1932 )
Life
 Scottish biologist , sociologist ,
geographer , philanthropist and
a town planner .
 He is known for his innovative
thinking in fields of urban
planning and coined the term
“conurbation”
 He was the founder of Scots
college
Human- Environment
Relation
• The environment acts, through function, upon the
organism and the organism conversely acts, through
function, upon the environment.
• In human terms this can be understood as a place
acting through climatic and geographic processes
upon people and thus shaping them. At the same time
people act, through economic processes such as
farming and construction, on a place and thus shape
it. Thus both place and folk are linked and through
work are in constant transition.
Geddian Trio
Representation
• French theorist Frederic Le Play
theoretical developments that led to the
concept of regional planning.
• key units of society ==="Lieu, Travail,
Famille" ("Place, Work, Family"),
"family“ "folk".
• the family central "biological unit of
human society" from which all else
develops
• from "stable, healthy homes" providing
the necessary conditions for mental and
moral development that come beautiful
and healthy children who are able "to fully
participate in life".
Conservative Surgery
• a mode of planning that sought to consider "primary
human needs" in every intervention, engaging in
"constructive and conservative surgery" rather than the
"heroic, all of a piece schemes" popular in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.
• "conservative surgery": "weeding out the worst of the
houses that surrounded them…widening the narrow
closes into courtyards" and thus improving sunlight and
airflow. The best of the houses were kept and restored.
Geddes believed that this approach was both more
economical and more humane.
Against Grid Iron Pattern
• “The heritage of the gridiron plans goes back at least to the
Roman camps. The basis for the grid as an enduring and
appealing urban form rests on five main characteristics:
order and regulatory, orientation in space and to elements,
simplicity and ease of navigation, speed of layout, and
adaptability to circumstance.”
• However, he wished this policy of "sweeping clearances" to be
recognised for what he believed it was: "one of the most
disastrous and pernicious blunders in the chequered history
of sanitation".
• criticised this tradition as much for its "dreary
conventionality" as for its failure to address in the long term
the very problems it purport to solve.
Observational Technique
• Geddes encouraged close
observation as the way to discover
and work with the relationships
among place, work and folk. In
1892, to allow the general public an
opportunity to observe these
relationships, Geddes opened a
“sociological laboratory” called the
Outlook Tower that documented and
visualized the regional landscape
Civic Survey
• civic survey as indispensable to urban planning: his
motto was "diagnosis before treatment". Such a
survey should include, at a minimum, the geology,
the geography, the climate, the economic life, and the
social institutions of the city and region. His early
work surveying the city of Edinburgh became a
model for later surveys.
In India
• His principles for town planning in Bombay demonstrate his views on the
relationship between social processes and spatial form, and the intimate and
causal connections between the social development of the individual and the
cultural and physical environment. 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.
• 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.
Planning of Tel Aviv
Location
• The city of Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 to the
immediate north of the walled port city of Jaffa, on
the hills along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean
Sea.
• During the era of British rule in Palestine (1917-1948)
it developed into a thriving urban centre, becoming
Israel's foremost economic and metropolitan nucleus.
Planning
• Geddes submitted his plans in 1925 and they were
approved the next year.
• He was asked to plan a city for 100,000 inhabitants – in
1925 there were 25,000
• The serial property consists of three separate zones, the
central White City, Lev Hair and Rothschild Avenue, and
the Bialik Area, surrounded by a common buffer zone.
• The buildings of Tel Aviv are further enriched by local
traditions; the design was adapted to the specific climatic
conditions of the site, giving a particular character to the
buildings and to the ensemble as a whole.
• He saw a city as a circulation system. Large main
boulevards (North-South) – Chen, Ben Yehuda, Dizengoff
and Hayarkon were extensions of the existing streets in the
South.

• All the boulevards were paved and well planted. The

boulevards would be the main circulation “arteries” with
the main commercial activities and taller buildings –
“mainways”.

• At right angles to these would be the East-West boulevards

– Keren Kayemet , Nordau, Arlozoroff and Kibbutz
Galuyot. These would bring the sea breezes into the new
city, like a circulatory system.

• at right angles to these main boulevards were small roads

leading to “Blocks” as he called them.
Narrow lanes
irregularly arranged to discourage traffic allowed access to super blocks
Building type
• Each block or cluster was of a different design in shape and
atmosphere and in planting, so that there was instant
recognition of place and home.
• His town plan was no mechanical or geometrical grid but a
principle adapted to the geography and topography of the
place and stressing the variety inherent in humans, in
locality and in climate.
• By allowing small buildings of 2-3 floors, which faced
either towards the small access roads or the public gardens,
all inhabitants would have light and air.
• Immigrants from different countries filled these blocks
and social integration
Principle
• Freestanding buildings and incremental paralleling of
superblocks prevented the construction of large
buildings .
• Institutional buildings were placed prominently to
prevent mutual forgetfulness.
• He anticipated a city of multi national immigrants
bringing and adapting their own building styles.
NOW

• Population has doubled – therefore alignments of

buildings were restricted to an extent.
• Height limitation ( 2 floors ) was avoided.
• Open spaces converted to residential plots
• Landowners were reluctant to give up their land for
public use
• No fund - Municipality