Centre for Scottish Studies presents Professor Emeritus R. J. Morris"Patrick Geddes, Property Developer. Edinburgh 1890-1914"

Second annual St. Andrew's Society of Toronto Lecture.
Leadi
ng urban historian Bob Morris will give an illustrated talk on Scottish inte
llectual and urban planner Patrick Geddes. As modernity progressed in the la
te Victorian period, there formed a growing realisation of the need to reca
librate the urban–rural balance. When the urban planner Patrick Geddes (1854
–1932) purchased a six-storey property next door to Edinburgh Castle in 1892
, he acquired a building that had previously been used as a public observat
ory. Geddes installed a camera obscura to allow visitors to have a panoramicview of the city and the symbolism was clearer than the weather would oftenallow: that to understand the city it had to be seen in the round.