Patrick Geddes's (e)utopian Belvedere in Southern France

Patrice Bouche

Planning Perspectives, 2014, vol. 29, issue 1, 91-102

Abstract: The Collège des Ecossais in Montpellier, France, Patrick Geddes' last major project and place of death in 1932, may have been a mere reproduction of his Edinburgh Outlook Tower under fairer skies. The site Geddes fell in love with in the South was, characteristically of his ideals, mostly a place with a view, in fact over much of Languedoc. As we shall show, this view was one of a whole region made 'legible' at a glance, with city, mountains and sea, a prospect at the same time wide and limited, an area with ready access to the rest of the world yet self-contained. Besides, what the ageing Geddes wanted to achieve near Montpellier was no less than to gather a representative assemblage of up-and-coming scholars from three continents. Yet again, the Collège may have been an excuse for Geddes to postpone the writing of long-awaited books. However, we will see that it also served as a stone-and-mortar receptacle for his ideas and systems, which would hardly be surprising from a thinker who was ever looking for ways of escaping traditional teaching methods.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2013.859096

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