Patrick Geddes

Sir Patrick Geddes ( October 2, 1854 in Ballater, † April 17, 1932 in Montpellier) was a Scottish biologist and botanist. He is best known as an innovative thinker in the field of urban planning and education. His botanical author abbreviation is " Geddes ".

Life

Geddes father was a simple soldier in a suburb of Perth, acquired in 1857 a cottage by the name of Mount Tabor. There grew up the young Patrick Geddes and collected in the mountains above the River Tay his first experience in the field of botany. In the years 1874-1878 he studied at the Royal College of Mines in London under Thomas Henry Huxley. Already with 24 years Geddes was a renowned biologist whose work has been published by the Royal Society. In 1879 he taught at Stonehaven for the University of Aberdeen is a zoological institution. After that he went on a research trip to Mexico. After an illness that almost eyesight would have cost him, he turned his attention to the man and his life environment. In 1888 he took over the Department of Botany at University College, Dundee, where he remained until 1919, before becoming the holder of the Chair of Sociology at the University of Bombay for five years. In 1924 he founded the Collège des Écossais Montpellier in southern France. 1932 a few months before his death, he was raised to the peerage.

Patrick Geddes was like the sociologist John Ruskin considers social processes and spatial structures are closely linked. He thought it therefore possible, by specific design of the physical environment to influence social processes or initiate. He presented this theory at the beginning of the 20th century, a time when industrialization had changed the lifestyle of people in the UK dramatically. Geddes goal was to create an urban environment that would be optimally adapted to the needs of the human body and mind would bring into harmony.

Geddes demonstrated his theories through his work, among others, in the old town of Edinburgh. In a highly dilapidated quarters, had lived in the well-known in the 18th and 19th century thinkers such as Adam Smith, he taught a citizen halls. In a tower at Edinburgh Castle, the Outlook Tower, he set up a museum of local, regional and international history. Heart of the museum was a big Camera Obscura in the spire. You should allow the visitor to overlook his immediate environment and they learn to understand as a unit.

Geddes theses influenced many thinkers of the 20th century, such as the American urban theorist Lewis Mumford. Today Geddes is often considered the father of city planning.

He founded the College Des Ecossais in Montpellier, France. Together with his son, the architect Sir Frank Mears, he worked on projects in the Middle East: In 1925 he was commissioned to restructure Tel Aviv by a master plan. He designed a garden city with hierarchical road network and with many places. Named after him Geddes plan but had to be changed quite a bit - because in the first half of the 1930s treat injuries sustained more people than anticipated. Nevertheless, the idea of Geddes in many places can still read out. 1932, shortly before his death, Geddes was knighted.

Educational work

Geddes developed a pedagogical model away from the traditional " 3Rs " (Reading, writing, arithmetic ). He preferred instead the " 3H ", namely Heart, Head, Hand. This education with " head, heart and hand" can already be found in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Geddes Pestalozzi model further by giving the heart ( Heart ) the preference, because he was of the opinion that traditional education was concentrating too much on the head ( Head ). Geddes knew the meaning, they have to learn feelings for motivation. Therefore, he suggested that teachers should first understand what their students really motivated. Geddes came to the conclusion that learning should be at the heart, so start with the feelings. After that you should be on hand ( learning by doing ) and finally on the head ( " intellectual " learning, learning from books ) focus. As an ideal learning environment for heart and hand Geddes suggested the great outdoors.

In Geddes ' native Scotland this knowledge has to be so held in nature until today the consequence, Learning in the " outside". With growing awareness of the pedagogical work Geddes ' spread this idea more and more across the borders of Scotland.

Works

Patrick Geddes: the life and work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose, red apple -Verlag, Erlenbach - Zurich 1930