Recently featured on the Designing Buildings Wiki (DBW) email alert – sent to nearly 8000 registered users – is Steven Robb’s article on ‘Conservative surgery in Edinburgh’, from IHBC’s Context special issue on ‘Conservation and urbanism’.
Steven Robb, Deputy Head of Casework for Historic Environment Scotland (HES), writes: ‘Throughout the 20th century Edinburgh and its council wavered between ‘conservative surgery’ and more sweeping solutions to the city’s repair and rejuvenation… Geddes pioneered diagnostic survey followed by conservative surgery in Edinburgh’s medieval Old Town, largely abandoned by the wealthy for the New Town in the late-18th century. It was also the area where the council advanced several housing renewal programmes.’
‘Geddes believed that cities should be seen as continuously evolving organisms, setting great worth on the continuity of tradition and physical characteristics of a place. Once the essence of a place was understood, he believed, it could be given a new lease of life through good design and by targeting detrimental elements. Returning to the medical analogy, diagnosis, followed by minor surgical procedures, rather than amputations, allowed the rest of the body to flourish.’
‘Geddes arguably struggled with his concepts in print, but in practice his approach was electric. Moving into an unfashionable Old Town tenement in 1886, he enticed his neighbours to remove a ruinous building, clearing space for a garden. His practical hands-on approach was endorsed by the council in its 1893 Old Town Improvement Scheme, where Geddes cleared three cavernous Lawnmarket closes of decayed extensions, creating an accessible open court and breathing space for several reconditioned historic buildings and a sensitively designed new arts-and-crafts tenement. His approach turned out to be cheaper and less socially disturbing than the council’s major redevelopment scheme of 1867…’
Related links identified on the Conservation Wiki are:
- Conservation.
- Conservation area.
- Conservation Professional Practice Principles.
- Creating strong communities – measuring social sustainability in new housing development.
- IHBC articles.
- Planning blight.
- Regeneration.
- Scotland’s Homes Fit for Heroes.
- The Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
Designing Buildings Wiki is the only industry-wide, cross-discipline forum for finding and sharing information. Anyone can create articles about subjects they know and anyone can find articles about subjects they don’t.
View the Conservation Wiki article
Read the full Context issue online and see the original Context article
