About this Event
Join Lou Rosenburg and Cliff Hague in conversation with Dr Lesley Martin, Chair of the Cockburn Association on the occasion of the publication of the long awaited 2nd edition of Renewing Old Edinburgh
Lou Rosenburg co-authored the orginal edition of Renewing Old Edinburgh with the late Jim Johnson.
An Afterword in the new edition by Cliff Hague OBE, Emeritus Professor of Planning and Spatial Development at Heriot-Watt University, takes the story of the Old Town forward to the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.
THE BOOK
Edinburgh’s Old Town and its built heritage bring into sharp relief the conflicts everywhere between the grand schemes of commercial developers and the desire to preserve the character of our towns and cities and support existing communities.
Renewing Old Edinburgh is an account of the history of area renewal in Edinburgh’s Old Town from 1860 to the present. Using their own original research including photographic evidence, the authors explain that the historical experience has in many respects been a protracted struggle between two conflicting approaches to area-based regeneration. One way favours large-scale demolition and comprehensive redevelopment of sizeable cleared sites; the other promotes a more incremental style of renewal which the Scots polymath Patrick Geddes described as ‘conservative surgery’. Geddes’ own contributions in the 1880s and 1890s – and those of the City architects who came after him – are assessed for their continuing relevance.
This new edition takes the story of the Old Town forward to the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. That story is part of a wider narrative of how Edinburgh responded to the international financial crisis and the austerity that followed. In an Afterword to the original text, Cliff Hague reveals the irony: the very success of decades of advocacy and local action to save the Old Town made its latent value ripe for exploitation.
THE BOOK CAN BE ORDERED FROM THIRSTY BOOKS IN ADVANCE OF PUBLICATION
https://www.thirstybooks.com/bookshop/renewing-old-edinburgh-the-enduring-legacy-of-patrick-geddes-2nd-edition
Event venue & nearby stays
Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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