Patrick Geddes, Ian McHarg and the origins of landscape urbanism | S1 E6

CITY as LANDSCAPE architecture

There is a fully illustrated version of this podcast on Youtube. It's about the most influential landscape architect of the 20th century. Well known to planners and environmental campaigners, Patrick Geddes is less well-known to landscape architects, landscape planners and landscape urbanists. This is a pity.

My preferred account of landscape architecture is that it is the art and science of composing five elements to achieve the Vitruvian objectives of Commodity, Firmness and Delight in the design of outdoor space for public goods. Using this definition the practical work of Patrick Geddes is very much landscape architecture and indeed he was the first British citizen to use the professional title landscape, architecture in its modern sense - as launched by Frederick law Olmstead.

When dealing with the regeneration of the landscape at the head of the Royal mile in Edinburgh he proposed gardens as a main feature and his daughter who trained as a landscape gardener did some of the design work for him. Later he competed in the Dunfermline competition and described himself as a landscape architect. During much of the First World War he was in India and undertook many consultancy commissions. On these projects his work was that on these projects is what was that of a landscape architect over he chose to describe himself as a town planner. It was really urban landscape design or as he would prefer Civic design. The typical recommendations in these projects were just the kind that a modern landscape architect would make for an urban project and they are not at all the type of proposals that students on town planning courses learn to make.