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Outlook Tower is a building in Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
, Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, next to Edinburgh Castle. Formerly known as 'Short's Observatory, Museum of Science and Art'from 1853 to 1892, it was purchased and refurbished by Patrick Geddes
Patrick Geddes

Sir Patrick Geddes was a Scotland biologist and botanist, known also as an innovative thinker in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term conurbation ....
 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".






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Outlook Tower is a building in Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
, Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, next to Edinburgh Castle. Formerly known as 'Short's Observatory, Museum of Science and Art'from 1853 to 1892, it was purchased and refurbished by Patrick Geddes
Patrick Geddes

Sir Patrick Geddes was a Scotland biologist and botanist, known also as an innovative thinker in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term conurbation ....
 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". The building is now known as .

Part of the Old Edinburgh School of Art in Ramsay Lane, on the corner of Castlehill, Geddes renamed Short's Observatory as the Outlook Tower, incorporating Maria Short's Camera Obscura
Camera obscura

The camera obscura is an optical device used, for example, in drawing or for entertainment. It is one of the inventions leading to photography....
 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. The tower, with its three floors of exhbitions, is still open to the public, making it the oldest purpose built attraction in the city,and one of the oldest in the United Kingdom. Nowadays there are passing references to Patrick Geddes in the Camera Obscura presentation on the top floor where the camera obscura is still in use to project a 'virtual' tour of the city for visitors, and also on the rooftop terrace with its stunning views and very powerful telescopes. But there are many more things to do, see and play with in the World of Illusions on the other floors where there is a huge variety of hands on interactive exhibits on the themes of optical illusions, light, colour and ways of seeing. See ,

The concept of Outlook Tower was tried elsewhere. With 70 years old Patrick Geddes moved to Montpellier
Montpellier

Montpellier is a city in the south of France. It is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon Regions of France, as well as the H?rault Departments of France....
, France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of 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).