Book launch: Renewing Old Edinburgh — The Enduring Legacy of Patrick Geddes

Monday 16 November 2026, 7pm
Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Mark the launch of the second edition of Jim Johnson and Lou Rosenburg’s Renewing Old Edinburgh: The Enduring Legacy of Patrick Geddes.

Tracing the renewal of Edinburgh’s Old Town from 1860 onwards, this richly illustrated book explores the tensions between large-scale demolition and redevelopment and the more gradual approach Patrick Geddes called ‘conservative surgery’: repairing and adapting existing buildings while sustaining the communities around them.

The new edition brings the story up to the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, with an afterword by former Cockburn Association Chair Cliff Hague. It offers a timely perspective on the pressures shaping the Old Town and the continuing relevance of Geddes’ ideas to Edinburgh’s future.

This is a free event. Booking preferred but not essential.