C O N T E X T 1 5 0 : J U L Y 2 0 1 7 19 STEVEN ROBB Conservative surgery in Edinburgh Throughout the 20th century Edinburgh and its council wavered between ‘conservative surgery’ and more sweeping solutions to the city’s repair and rejuvenation. Conservative surgery:‘surgery in which as much as possible of a part or structure is retained’, often ‘an equally effective alternative to radical surgery’.1 This medical definition of conservative surgery neatly echoes the theories associated with proto-town planner Sir Patrick Geddes (1854–1932).Transferred to an urban context, it acknowledges two approaches to townscape; its modification and adaptation, or the more drastic method of comprehensive redevelopment. Geddes pioneered diagnostic survey followed by conservative surgery in Edinburgh’s medieval OldTown, 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 References 1 Farlex Medical Dictionary (2009) Far left: Merchant Street (1929): an internally reconstructed 18th century tenement forming six flats and a women’s hostel Alison’s Close, a 17th-century tenement, was acquired and reconstructed under 1919 Act provisions (Courtesy of City of Edinburgh Council, Libraries www. capitalcollections.org.uk) 74–84 Grassmarket (1928): a new infill tenement and shops, making use of 17th-century stonework. Sanitary considerations relating to ceiling heights led to MacRae’s original restoration scheme being vetoed.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=