Outlook Tower

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Outlook Tower is a building in Edinburgh, Scotland, purchased and refurbished by Patrick Geddes in 1892 to transform into a "place of outlook and a type-museum as a key to a better understanding of Edinburgh and its region, but also to help people get a clear idea of its relation to the world at large"^[1].

Part of the Old Edinburgh School of Art in Ramsay Lane, on the corner of Castlehill, Geddes converted the building into the Outlook Tower with its Camera Obscura and mounted his Civic Survey of Edinburgh exhibition. Patrick Geddes was a committed believer in the exhibition as a vehicle of education. The exhibition though constructed and opened to the public, was relatively short-lived and never completed. It is nowadays open to the public with an exhibition of Geddes' work, various scientific galleries, holograms and pin-hole photography. On top of the tower the camera obscura is still in use to project a 'virtual' tour of the city for visitors.

The concept of Outlook Tower was tried elsewhere. With 70 years old Patrick Geddes moved to Montpellier, France where he bought land on a hill with a view over the city, built a house and incorporated another Outlook Tower. The house became the Scots College (College Des Ecossais).