The Hindu 04.03.2011
‘Town planners must take inspiration from Geddes’
Writer and historian Ramachandra Guha delivering the Salim Ali Memorial
Lecture 2010-11 in Coimbatore on Wednesday. — Photo: M. Periasamy
Town planners in every city in India should take inspiration from
Patrick Geddes, Scottish town planner and biologist, said Ramachandra
Guha, writer and historian, at a lecture in the city on Wednesday.
“Geddes’ words should be pasted above the office desks
of planners working today in Chennai, Hyderabad and a dozen other cities
of India,” he said while delivering the Salim Ali Memorial Lecture
2010-11, organised by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural
History.
There were three central themes to Geddes’ town plans — respect for nature, democracy and tradition.
His town plans were deeply ecological. He saw Indian
city as defined by its relation to water. Traditional India considered
rivers sacred, which he called the fundamental and central river-factor
of human environmentalists. Wherever there were no rivers, he stressed
the renewal and revitalisation of tanks.
Geddes was also alert to space, however small. As a
skilled botanist, he had a keen eye appropriate species. His plans were
filled with meticulously specific recommendations.
Geddes stressed the conservation of resources, to
minimise the city’s dependence on the hinterland. Particularly
noteworthy was what he said about wells.
“These, he says, should be regarded as a valuable
reserve to the existing water supplies, even if these were efficient.
Any and every water system occasionally goes out of order, and is open
to accidents and injuries of very many kinds; and in these old wells we
inherit an ancient policy, of life insurance, of a very real kind, and
one far too valuable to be abandoned.”
Recycling
The town planner also emphasises the importance of
recycling, said Mr. Guha. Sewage could be fruitfully used to manure
gardens, converting a fetid and poisonous nuisance into a scene of order
and beauty. This might even lead to an elevation in the status of the
sweepers, who would be put in charge of using night-soil to raise and
cultivate gardens.
The second theme was respect for democracy. This too had several distinct aspects.
The first was that of participation, Mr. Guha said: “As
the physician must make a diagnosis of the patients’ case before
prescribing treatment, so with the planner for the city.”
The democratic town planner must pay special attention
to the needs of the less-privileged groups. He stressed on the rights
and needs of women and children, which tend to be ignored in most plans.
Mr. Guha said another aspect of Geddes’ democratic
instincts was his opposition to the mindless destruction of buildings to
improve the town or to build highways for cars to drive through.
This logically led to the respect for tradition, or
Geddes’ awareness of what was now called heritage conservation. He
offered a five-word motto that those interested in heritage preservation
must impress upon every architect and town planner that “To postpone is
to conserve”.
Summing up, Mr. Guha said Geddes drew a distinction between what he called the Paleotechnic present and a Neotechnic future.
The former was the dominance of man by machine, finance
and militarism. But Geddes hoped for a new, Neolithic age based on solar
energy and on long-lasting alloys, marked by its better use of
resources and population towards the betterment of man and his
environment together.