The Outlook Tower - Edinburgh Room, south west corner.

It was in the Outlook Tower that Geddes forged and disseminated many of his ideas. Designed as a civic observatory, Geddes also held Summer Meetings there. He attracted notable thinkers and speakers to deliver classes in both the arts and sciences. The Photographic Society of Edinburgh established an Edinburgh Photographic Survey group in 1899, with the objective of creating a photographic record of Edinburgh. The Society subsequently staged an exhibition in 1904 which included 359 photographs. It is not clear whether the photographs used by Geddes in his Survey of Edinburgh were loaned to him from the Photographic Society of Edinburgh or in fact commissioned by him. It is thought that many may have been taken by photographers Francis Caird Inglis and Robert Dykes and then a selection made and arranged for the survey by Geddes himself, assisted by Dykes, and two of Geddes’ children, Norah and Alastair Geddes, and his God-daughter, Mabel Barker. ​Over 250 of the original, glass-plate negatives from Geddes’ Survey of Edinburgh survive. Creator uncertain; possibly Francis Caird Inglis, fl. 1880-1940, (photographer); Robert Dykes, fl. 1905-1906, (photographer); or the Photographic Society of Edinburgh, 1861-

University of Edinburgh, Patrick Geddes Collection: Coll-1167/B/27/24/1