THEORISING AND READING URBAN SPACE

UNIT-III

Ideas of Image ability and townscape(Cullen and Kevin Lynch)

Place and genius loci
The city and its artefacts-Aldo Rossi
Social aspects of urban space-Jane Jacobs, William Whyte
IDEAS OF IMAGEABILITY AND TOWNSCAPE:

Kevin Lynch:

Kevin Lynch (1960) pioneered a scientific approach to urban design studying and
analysed the components of urban design parameters and human evaluation. He put
forth the image of the city as a concept which can be perceived, evaluated and
changed.

Ideas of lynch
 He was concerned by the look of the cities and whether this look is of any
importance , or whether this look can be changed.
 He introduced the theory of urban form.
 An urban environment is a complex system of interactions between people
(users) and various surrounding objects
 Lynch described two things important for a subsequent explanation of the
whole theory: first, physical elements of the city and second, the
psychological, mental image of the city.

Wrote 7 books:
1. The image of the city.
2. City sense and city design.
3. Good city form.
4. Site planning

The Image of the City

Lynch's most famous work, The Image of the City (1960), is the result of a five-year
study on how observers take in information of the city. Using three American cities
as examples (Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles), Lynch reported that users
understood their surroundings in consistent and predictable ways, forming mental
maps with five elements:

 Paths, the streets, sidewalks, trails, and other channels in which people
travel;
 Edges, perceived boundaries such as walls, buildings, and shorelines;
 Districts, relatively large sections of the city distinguished by some identity or
character;
 Nodes, focal points, intersections or loci;
 Landmarks, readily identifiable objects which serve as external reference
points.

In the same book, Lynch also coined the words "imageability" and "wayfinding".
Image of the City has had important and durable influence in the fields of urban
planning and environmental psychology.
Three main concepts of visual communication

1. Imageability and Legibility

2. Environmental images and urban life

3. Bottom-up strategy

Legibility and Imageability:

• Legibility means the extend to which the cityscape can be ‘read’

• People who move through the city engage in way-finding

• Thus, they need to be able to recognize and organize urban elements into a
coherent pattern.

“In the process of way-finding, the strategic link is the environmental image, the
generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an
individual. This image is the product both of immediate sensation and of the
memory of past experience, and it is used to interpret information and to guide
action.

• The image of the urban-scape has to be perceived by the observer

• Imageability and legibility leads to identification of a structure and therefore

a precise identity;

• This is necessary to analyse an urban system and its own elements;

• Elements include: path, landmark, edge, node and district

Environmental images and urban life:

• People perceive cities through their social experiences

• Jersey City Experiment – to make rapid description of the city

• Common results from the experiment:

a. Common interest for panoramas and smaller landscape features noted with
care and attention;

b. Shapeless places, which although not pleasant, seem to be remarkable and

striking

From the experiment, what evidently arises is that each individual image constitutes
a connection between urban forms and what is, on a more global extent, the
public image. Each of those images is constructed and relying on the 5 elements,
which are:

• paths: the channel of the observer; routes along which people move
throughout the city

• edges: breaking in continuity with the surrounding areas

• districts: areas characterized by common characteristics

• nodes: strategic points for orientation like squares and junctions

• landmarks: external references of orientation, usually a easily identifiable

physical object in the urban landscape

A legible mental map gives people:

• important sense of emotional security

• it is the framework for communication and conceptual organization

• heightens the depth and intensity of everyday human experience

The city itself is thus a powerful symbol of a complex society.

An environmental image has three components:

1. Identity - the recognition of urban elements as separate entities

2. Structure -the relation of urban elements to other objects and to the observer

3. Meaning - its practical and emotional value to the observer.

4. They should design the city in such a way that it gives room for three related
‘movements’: mapping, learning, shaping.

5. First, people should be able to acquire a clear mental map of their urban
environment.

6. Second, people should be able to learn how to navigate in this environment

by training.

7. Third, people must be able to operate and act upon their environment.

Bottom-up strategy:

Bottom-up method – starting from individual elements to reach gradually the whole.

This strategy would be set to aim at continuity, regularity, measurability and

kinesthetic quality, which is the first to provide identity over a continuous experience
through time.
CULLEN:
 Gordon Cullen studied architecture at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, but
never qualified as an architect.
 He started his career working as a draughtsman in various architectural
practices before spending a couple of years in Barbados.
 He then returned to Britain and joined the Architectural Review as Assistant
Editor in 1946. He later became a writer on planning policy and contributed
numerous editorials and case studies in urban and rural planning.

Townscape:
 His major contribution to the field of urban design is his 1961 Townscape.
 Like most of Cullen’s work, this book deals with the “art of relationship”
between the various components of the urban landscape.
 The purpose of this art is “to take all the elements that go to create the
built environment: buildings, trees, nature, water, traffic,
advertisements, and so on, and to weave them in such a way that drama
is released”. (Cullen, 1961, p.9)
 Cullen’s approach to urban design is therefore primarily visual, but it is also
based on the physical relationship between movement and the environment:
“the scenery of towns is often revealed in a series of jerks or
revelations.” (Cullen, 1961, p.9) It is for this reason that Cullen developed
the concept of serial vision. This method of representation can be used as a
tool for surveying, analyzing and designing.

A serial vision is a series of sketches that represent the changes and constrasts in
the character of the built environment that one experiences when moving around the
city. The sketches should be shown along with a map identifying the ‘journey’ and
the viewpoints from which the sketches are drawn.

In Cullen’s own words, “the even progress of travel is illuminated by a series of

sudden contrasts and so an impact is made on the eye, bringing the plan to
life”. (Cullen, 1961, p.17). As you will see in Unit 1.3., this is close to Fleming's idea
of the town as narrative.
The concept of serial vision and, generally speaking, Cullen’s approach, can be
applied to design as much as it can serve survey and analysis : “if […] we design our
towns from the point of view of the moving person (pedestrian or car-borne) it is easy
to see how the whole city becomes a plastic experience, a journey through
pressures and vacuums, a sequence ofexposures and enclosures, of constraint and
relief.” (Cullen, 1961, p.10)
But design does not solely rely on visual methods. Cullen’s book is a fine example of
the importance of using specific vocabulary when describing the built environment:
Imeagibity:

 Imageability is related to “sense of place.” Gorden Cullen (1961, p. 152)

elaborates on the concept of sense of place, asserting that a characteristic
visual theme will contribute to a cohesive sense of place and will inspire
people to enter and rest in the space.
Jan Gehl (1987, p. 183) explains this phenomenon using the example of
famous Italian city squares, where “life in the space, the climate, and the
architectural quality support and complement each other to create an
unforgettable total impression.” When all factors manage to work together to
such pleasing ends, a feeling of physical and psychological well-being results:
the feeling that a space is a thoroughly pleasant place in which to be.
 Imageability is influenced by many other urban design qualities—enclosure,
human scale, transparency, complexity, coherence, legibility, and
linkage—and is in some way the net effect of these qualities.
 Places that rate high on these qualities are likely to rate high on imageability
as well—the neighborhoods of Paris or San Francisco, for example. However,
places that rate low on these qualities may also evoke strong images, though
ones that people may prefer to forget, such as boring industrial parks or strips
of faceless shopping centers.
 Urban designers focus on the strength of positive images in discussing
imageability and sense of place.
PLACE AND GENIUS LOCI:

 According to Christian Norberg-Schulz, a genius loci was referred to by the

Romans as a protective spirit of a place in the classical period.

 Can be defined as the cognition of one’s surroundings, often used in relation

to the characteristics that make an area unique.

 It also relates to the authenticity of human attachment and belonging to a

space.

 The Romans believed that there was a geist, that would protect a place, and
this spirit has certain characteristics or a singular characteristic.

 Architecturally the genius loci is a distinctive atmosphere or characteristic

of a place.

 Certain places draw many onlookers and observers while others may be
desolate and empty.

 But both situations may contain a genius loci that is it’s own distinctive
characteristic, that could be completely unrelated to its physical location.

 Light, sounds, form, or usage; the possibilities of the distinctive

atmosphere could be endless and as complex or simple as you could define.

 Each city has a unique ‘spirit of place,’ or a distinctive atmosphere, that goes
beyond the built environment.

 This urban context reflects how a city functions in ‘real time’ as people move
through time and space.

 The architecture and physical infrastructure of a city give way to the rhythms
of the passing of the day and transition of the seasons. This provides the
‘temporal spectacles’ that define a city.

 This context of a city is more formally known as ‘genius loci,’ or the genetic
footprint of a place.

 One could logically apply 'sense of place' to an urban high street; noting
the architecture, the width of the roads and pavements, the plantings, the
style of the shop-fronts, the street furniture

 Gordon Cullen, transformed the Architectural Review polemic into an

analytical and design tool.

 Townscape was “the art of relationship”; it was important to take all the
elements that go to create the environment:

 buildings,
  trees,

 nature,

 water,

 traffic, advertisements and so on, and to weave them together in such a way
that drama is released.

 For a city is a dramatic event in the environment.

THE CITY AND ITS ARTEFACTS:

ALDO ROSSI (1931-97): THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY

 Ever from its evolution, mankind has built favorable surroundings with its roots
in its civilization.

 These built forms transform themselves over the years overlapping the theme
of its own development and thus there is a contrast in the existence of the
structure over time.

 The change of nature of the ‘urban artifact’ may diminish the value of the
evolution, overriding the rational design of ‘locus’.

 Richness of the history is the characterstic of an urban artifact, its

auspicious character and omnious moments of life makes it an indispensable
part of the city.

Rossi is primarily concerned with the form of a city which is the summary of its
architecture.

Two different hypotheses are taken here to mean the architecture of the city.

 Firstly Rossi finds city as a manmade object, a work of engineering and

architecture.
 Second, certain more limited but still crucial aspects of the city, such as
urban artefacts, which like the city itself are characterized by their own
history and thus by their own form.

Primary elements and dynamics of urban elements

 Rossi defines urban artifacts as primary elements because their existence has
contributed to the morphological and cultural evolution of the city.
  Any element capable of accelerating the process of urbanization in the city is
a primary element, including an empty space.

Theory of Permanence:

 Rossi hypothesised the city as a giant man-made object produced in the

process of time.
 The persistence of the city is revealed through 'monuments’ as well as
through the city’s basic layout and the plans.
 Cities tried to retain their axis of development by maintaining the position
of their original layout and growing according to the direction and meaning
of their older artefacts.

City as a spatial system:

 City is conceived as a spatial system composed of many parts.

 Residential area is one of such elements in the total form of the city.
 It is closely attached to nature and evolution of a city, and constitutes the
city’s image.

History and the Collective Memory:

 The history is the ‘collective memory’ of people of the city and it has an
important influence on the cityitself.
 The history expresses itself through the monuments.
 Sometimes myth precedes the history of a city and thus become
important.
 Athens is the first clear example of the science of urban architecture and
its development through history which is initiated by a myth.
 According to Rossi Rome reveals total contrasts and contradictions of the
modern city; but Athens remains the purest experience of humanity, the
embodiment of condition that can never recur.

The Locus:

 The locus is conceived of a singular place and event, which works as the
relationship of architecture to the constitution of the city and the
relationship between the context and monument.
 Usually locus is the conditions and the qualities of a space necessary to
understand an urban artefact.
 On the other hand, architecture shapes a context, which again constitutes
changes in space.
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF URBAN SPACE:

JANE JACOBS:

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)

• It attacks the principle and objectives of modernism, orthodox city planning

and rebuilding of US post war

• Best ideas on liveable cities originate from observations of city life rather than
deductive theories or master plans (which was the radical new approach in
US during the 1960s)

Urban planning in post-war period:

• Increase in suburban style living in the mid-1950s with increasing number of

automobile and federally subsidized motorways

• While the land values in the suburbs were booming, downtowns were
decaying more and more as former city dwellers began to shop in the
new enclosed malls that were developed in the brand-new suburbs.

• Public transportation systems continues to deteriorate as more people were

driving automobiles

Impacts of suburbanization:

• Decreased population in urban cores, but suburbs grew rapidly

• Jobs lost in central cities

• Merchants abandoned main streets for stop locations along highways

• White collar jobs in suburbs, whereas dirty industries left in city center

• Public housing in the form of huge high-rises

High-rise living:

• New York’s first housing projects in 1930s – high rise for luxury tenants

• Housing poor in high rises as most cost-efficient modelled on the “tower in

the park” design of Le Corbusier.

• Corbusier proposed that the city’s messy, short blocks be eliminated to be

replaced by huge mega-blocks spaced farther away in order to provide better
and healthier living conditions.
 • High-rise buildings was the only way to tackle the problem of increasing
concentration of people in the cities.

Issues with orthodox planning – Jacobs:

• Monotonous projects in the “wrong” areas in the cities;

• Expressways dissecting great cities;

• “urban renewal” destroying livable neighborhoods and their social fabric by

dispersing their residents and destroying small businesses;

• Planners using financial incentives to achieve large-scale projects with a high

“degree of monotony, sterility and vulgarity” (Jacobs, 1961, p.7)

Power of observation – Jacobs:

• To understand how cities work, Jacobs uses inductive reasoning and closely
observes city life;

• Inductive thinking is an activity that can be engaged in by ordinary, interested

citizens;

• Ordinary people relying on their observations – through judgment and

experiences.

• “This ubiquitous principle is the need of cities for a most intricate and close-
grained diversity of uses that give each other constant mutual support, both
economically and socially. The components of this diversity can differ
enormously, but they must supplement each other in certain concrete ways”
(Jacobs, 1961, p.14).

City streets, districts and mix of uses – Jacobs:

• Sidewalks to ensure street safety;

• A city district that fails to ensure street safety makes people fear the streets;
and as they fear them, they use them less, so that streets become even more
unsafe;

• Safe streets are streets where passers-by, street level merchants and
residents can keep ‘eyes’ on street

• Buildings need to be orientated in a way so that residents can watch street

life;

• Street activities are thus encouraged.

WILLIAM H. WHYTE:

 A pioneer in the study of human behavior in urban settings.

 why some urban plazas were successful as public spaces while others were
not.

 “The street is the river of life of the city.”

 They come to these places not to escape but to partake of it.”

 In fact, The relationship between the street and a plaza is another key
element to its success (or failure).

 As a result of this study, Whyte recommended to the Planning Commission

that the zoning regulations limit plazas to no more than three feet above or three
feet below street level to allow for visibility and easy access.

 The study found that tree canopies, water features, sculptures and food
vendors all played a role in attracting people to urban plazas and parks.

 Failed projects included places where streets faced blank walls and were
devoid of shops, windows or doors. For example, Houston, Texas is
complete with streets designed primarily for cars, without much consideration for
pedestrian traffic.

 Reaching a critical mass is also important in attracting people to public spaces.

 Less densely populated cities need to concentrate their public spaces in order
to generate activity.

 The area where the street and plaza or open space meet is key to success or
failure.

 Ideally, the transition should be such that it’s hard to tell where one ends and
the other begins.

 New York’s Paley Park is one of the best examples. The sidewalk in front is an
integral part of the park.

 An arborlike foliage of trees extends over the sidewalk.

 There are urns of flowers and the curb and, on either side of the steps, curved
sitting ledges.

 In this foyer you can usually find somebody waiting for someone else it is a
convenient rendezvous point people sitting on the ledges, and, in the middle of
the entrance, several people in conversation.