Yasmin Ali

This year's series of talks for Edinburgh's edition of Doors Open Day has welcomed experts from a range of disciplines to speak on architecture and related topics. Aubrey Manning is a distinguished professor of Zoology, and spoke on the legacy of polymath and pioneer Patrick Geddes, a 'prophet without honour', being understated in modern history so far, despite significant contributions to fields as diverse as ecology, sociology and town planning.

Geddes' strength lay in his prescience regards anticipating social needs, and his ability to think laterally and synthesise information from myriad fields to give a holistic approach to analysis. Manning relates the remarkable story of a young biologist praised by contemporaries and seniors as renowned as Darwin and Huxley, but denied a chair at Edinburgh University due to his lack of a completed undergraduate degree. Geddes assumed Chair of Botany at Dundee University, then led a varied career which opened up opportunities to present ideas in London, and travel and work on town planning projects in India.

Despite lack of recognition from the city's establishment, Geddes achieved social change in Edinburgh with his approach of 'Conservative surgery' to counter the effects of the grid-iron plan. In the Grassmarket, home of the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (SHBT) in Riddle's Court, Geddes rescued the slums of the early 20th century from further decay and prospective demolition by selectively removing sections to decrease density, increase access to modernised services and sanitation and create inner courts and gardens. This approach allowed the best properties to be retained and restored, and their amenity value increased by the new open courts.

Geddes also bought and brought and innovative outward-looking exhibition to the Camera Obscura further along the Royal Mile. Manning describes how Geddes is beginning to be memorialised around the area, with a recent  cast bust in the garden of Sandeman House off High St, and a plaque at Patrick Geddes Steps, leading from Johnston Terrace to the Grassmarket. Uniquely, the street name in the Old Town lettering also contains Geddes' three doves symbolising Sympathy, Synergy and Synthesis, three tenants of Geddesian thinking.

Manning presented an interesting and informative narrative detailing aspects of Geddes' life and work and highlighting ideas of note worth remembering.

The SHBT is currently raising money to complete funding for the proposed Patrick Geddes Centre for Learning and Conservation. The fund can be seen here.