Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 3, 2009

Sir Patrick Geddes (1854 - 1932) was a Scottish biologist and botanist, known also as an innovative thinker in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term conurbation.

He was born in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland on October 2, 1854. He studied at the Royal College of Mines in London under Thomas Henry Huxley between 1874 and 1878 and lectured in Zoology at Edinburgh University from 1880 to 1888. He held the Chair of Botany at University College Dundee from 1888 to 1919, and the Chair of Sociology at the University of Bombay from 1919 to 1924. He died in Montpellier, France on April 17, 1932. He was knighted in 1932 shortly before his death.

Geddes shared the belief with John Ruskin that social processes and spatial form are related. Therefore, by changing the spatial form it was possible to change the social structure as well. This was particularly important in the late 19th and early 20th century when industrialization was dramatically altering the conditions of life.