L. Sonck, unrealised plan for Töölöö, Helsinki, 1898

This reproduction of Lars Sonck's second prize-winning entry for Töölöö appears on page 373 of Helen Porfyriou's 1990 thesis Scandinavian town planning from 1900 to 1930 and the contribution of Camillo Sitte. A less clear representation of the same plan which however covers more of its area appears on p. 130 of Lars Sonck: 1870-1956, architect published by the Museum of Finnish Architecture possibly in 1982 (the layout is very complicated). This is the part of the plan I'm interested in of course:

I gather Sonck was somewhat beholden to the ideas of Camillo Sitte, at least for a while, and he justified his plan on that basis. These two blocks clearly contain something within them, the left block probably has a church or some kind of statue, the right one seems to be just a dog-leg pathway with perhaps what was later called by Patrick Geddes a 'street room'. You'll see in the first picture there is something similar to the south of the left block. 

Geddes in Edinburgh - 2

We then continued to some of the spaces attributed to Geddes as one contributor to a broader 1893 Sanitary Improvement Scheme for the Edinburgh Old Town. Johnson and Rosenburg talk of Geddes' attempts 'to find sensitive ways of "opening out" interior spaces within the existing street block in order to create more healthful courts and quadrangles. These re-designed interior spaces needed to be accessible (or in current architectural terminology "permeable") from the bounding streets...' On the same page (114) they quote Geddes himself advocating the letting of 'light and air' into 'slums and closes'.

The images above are all from Wardrop's Court, of which Johnson and Rosenburg write (p.115):

The treatment of Wardrop's Court is a particularly complex example of 'conservative surgery'. Geddes was given delegated responsibility for the supervision of property acquisition on Council's behalf and for the preparation of a detailed renewal plan. The physical solution for Wardrop's Court is more difficult to appreciate than the iconic Ramsay Garden development, but in many respects it provides a better indication of the subtle creativity that Geddes was able to apply to the mediaeval fabric of the Old Town.

The site containing Wardrop's Court occupies a key location along the Royal Mile, where Bank Street and the Mound are linked to George IV Bridge. Within the official boundaries of the designated site, there was a dense warren of dilapidated buildings behind the main frontages on the north side of the Lawnmarket and the west and north sides of the curving North Bank Street. Four narrow wynds provided access to the crowded interior 'backlands' via openings in the Lawnmarket facade. Two ancient merchant's houses - Gladstone's Land dating from around 1550 and Lady Stair's House dating from 1622 - were also located within the official boundaries of the improvement site. These historic buildings were scheduled for retention with varying degrees of modification.

Another of Geddes' courts, nearby, is Riddle's Close, harder to photograph in any way which gives a proper sense of the space. I will however put up some of my photographs from this locale in a future post.

Geddes in Edinburgh -1

In September 1925, Lewis Mumford spent a week with Patrick Geddes in Edinburgh, a time he found both frustrating and happy: 'he took me about the city,' Mumford wrote, 'showed me the hundred improvements that he had made or initiated; waste spaces become gardens, courts tidied, tenements renovated...'*

During my brief stay in Edinburgh in October last year I was lucky enough to take a short tour, of portions of Edinburgh remodelled by Patrick Geddes in the early 20th century, with Lou Rosenburg - author (with Jim Johnson) of the recent Renewing Old Edinburgh: The Enduring Legacy of Patrick Geddes (Argyll Publishing, Edinburgh 2010).

Our tour began with a brief visit to Ramsay Garden of which, Johnson and Rosenburg write:

'Geddes... created Ramsay Garden on a sloping site adjacent to the Castle Esplanade. This remarkable housing development resulted from his fruitful collaboration with two talented architects, S. Henbest Capper and Sydney Mitchell. On this dramatic and difficult site, an L-shaped configuration of flatted accommodation was created through an imaginative blending of new construction and adaptations to older buildings. The end product was a colourful vertical composition, with a mix of harl and timber, grey slates, red tiles and red sandstone, grouped on the Castlehill side around a lovely, semi-enclosed communal garden.' (p. 75)




* Lewis Mumford 'Note written after visit with Geddes in Edinburgh' 19 September 1925 in Frank G. Novak, Jr (ed) Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The Correspondence Routledge, London/NY 1995,  p. 341

Tel Aviv - a series of reserves internal and not so internal pt 4: space within Ester HaMaika, Ruth, Shulamit and Ya'el Streets

In his 1995 article 'The Machine in the City: Patrick Geddes' plan for Tel Aviv', Neal Payton attributes the success of Geddes' use of the internal reserve to a specific feature which, in effect, removes its 'internal' status. Many of the 'greens' inserted by Geddes into his sequence of networked neighbourhoods are, in fact, ringed by small roads. Properties face into the spaces and they take on more of a traditional village green status than a 'shared backyard' feel. Payton writes:

Geddes rejected the cul-de-sac model that Mumford advocated, and instead provided an inner perimeter of streets within the block connecting to the exterior of the block in a pinwheel fashion. thus each block could conceptually be understood as a rectangular doughnut with the centre either left void for neighbourhood gardens or for civic structures. In order to discourage through traffic on these interior streets they are not aligned across superblocks.

This is the space that Payton singles out as particularly successful. It is figure 7 in his article as 'one of the few pin-wheel blocks with centre park to be accomplished.'* The space is indeed a high-use, high value small park. Though somewhat crowded - it includes an air-raid shelter and an electricity substation - it also features seating, tables, landscaping, play equipment and one of the enormously successful kiosks which dot central Tel Aviv's parks and boulevards. Find it on Google Map here.

*Confusingly (given that the picture is an aerial photograph, with no street labelling) the image in Payton's article has erroneously been published with south at the top: a warning for those who would seek to use it to locate the space in question.

Tel Aviv - a series of reserves internal and not so internal pt 3: Unnamed (?) reserve off Biltmore

This reserve lies between Kohnstamm, Lipski, Biltmore and Moshe, in the same general area as the reserve in the first of this series (locate them both here).

It is less formal - or, at least, not comprehensively paved like the aforementioned space, but does feature two children's playgrounds (presumably for slightly differing age groups): one is fenced, and one open.

In my short time in Tel Aviv I have observed that many residents own dogs - often quite large ones - who presumably spend their days in apartments. It is not surprising then that any potential place to walk one's dog - aside from the pavement - is treasured. This reserve includes a dog walking compound: during my short visit there on 7 September 2011 a woman entered the space (the only human I saw use it in that time) and took her dog directly to the fenced area, then sat at a bench with plastic bag in hand. A dog walker advertises his/her services on a nearby bin. In my brief experience of this space however the real users are cats, who loll around in the sand in the part of the reserve that allows them maximum surveillance of the patch.

Tel Aviv - a series of reserves internal and not so internal pt 2: Harold and Dorothy Thau Park

Harold and Dorothy Thau Park has a dedication plaque dating it at 1999, which seems hard to believe, given that it contains at least one service building dating back at least half a century; a similar building to that contained within the Ruth-Yael reserve discussed above. It also contains some kind of electricity tower. Though most of the Geddes plan reserves are actually 'open' - surrounded by small roads - this is one which is resolutely internal. Its constant inhabitants seem to be a pack of cats who lounge around on top of the above (flat-roofed) building and on the day I visited – around 5 pm on September the 8 – a cat was resting on each of the many benches in the reserve.
The space also includes some grass, tables and something that looks like (and could function as, either in a formal or an ad-hoc way) a stage. Indicating a genuine community space, it also features a well-used noticeboard. It is used as a thoroughfare – and adjoins a synagogue – which no doubt increases traffic at least to the southern section of the reserve.
For reasons unclear this space is labelled Hahovevim Garden on google map.

Tel Aviv - a series of reserves internal and not so internal pt 1: unnamed (?) reserve between Pinkas, De Haass and Louis Marshall streets

In May 1925 Patrick Geddes, in the midst of planning for what was to become Tel Aviv, wrote to Lewis Mumford: 'I am adjusting all new city blocks to large ones, with interior bit of garden village. If you have such examples handy in U.S. pray send me what you can, to strengthen case.' Mumford responded with a report from Clarence Stein's Community Planning Committee: 'You will note that the Diagrams at the end of the report deal with your very problem; and give statistical proof of the economy of the large block.'*

Geddes' plans for Tel Aviv in the mid-1920s included a large number of commons areas which on first glance appear to fall into the internal reserve mould, but which were actually in most (?) cases small greens with minor roads surrounding them, so that housing would look into the space, cars and other vehicles would have access, and the feeling would be more of a 'village' atmosphere than a 'back yard extension'. One of the few of these spaces to remain will be dealt with in a future post. However, in revisions to the Geddes plan we find many classic examples of the internal reserve within forms reminiscent of the interwar era but not, as I understand it, directly from his pen. These include a group of internal reserves around the circle known as Kikar He-Medina.

The space depicted below is a reasonably sized reserve which, like many similar reserves in Tel Aviv, includes a number of valuable amenities. It is admirably served with seating, foliage and landscaping, a netball hoop (on the days of my visits, broken), and fixed tables and chairs. It is unsignposted, and has one entranceway; the surrounding flats (like most of inner Tel Aviv, four-five storey blocks) look into the space but do not 'face' it - in fact, some do not have windows on the reserve side; those with windows would often only see the greenery of the leafy reserve 'roof', rather than into the space itself.

* Geddes to Mumford 25 May 1925, Mumford to Geddes 20 June 1925, in Frank G. Novak, Jr Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The Correspondence Routledge, London/NY 1995, p. 226, p. 228