URBAN

IMAGEABILITY
 In 1960s and 70s, as a reaction to destructive impacts of
Modernism on American cities and urban life Kevin Lynch,
Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander and some others tried
to make the city legible once again.

 To them this could be done by restoring the social and

symbolic function of the street and other public spaces.

 They criticized the loss of human dimension on modern

cities. Thus their works derived from the view of city
dweller.
According to him, the legibility of the city, or “the
ease with which [a city’s] parts can be recognised and
can be organised into a coherent pattern”, is significant
not only for aiding practical tasks such as way-finding,
but
also that it is central to the emotional and physical well-
being of the inhabitant population, personally as well as
socially.

He continues by equating the legible environment with

an “imageable” one.
Imageability, according to him, is “that quality
in a physical object which gives it a high probability of
evoking a strong image in any given observer. … It might
also be called legibility.”
 Legibility

Legibility is a term used to describe the ease with

which people can understand the layout of a place.

By making questionnaire surveys, Lynch defined a

method of analyzing legibility based on five elements:

 paths,
 edges,
 districts,
 nodes
 landmarks.
Lynch describes paths as channels for potential movement,
Paths: familiar routes followed-
"are the channels along which the observer
customarily, occasionally, or potentially moves.
They may be streets, walkways, transit lines,
canals, railroads .."These are the major and
minor routes of circulation that people use to
move out.

A city has a network of major routes and a

neighbourhood network of minor routes. -Railroads
-Streets
-As the river used to
be the most
important path to the
city, we now rely
greatly on roads and
highways for
transportation
 RIVERS

TRAILS
 Districts- areas with perceived internal
homogeneity

"are medium-to-large sections of the city,

conceived of as having two-dimensional extent,
which the observer mentally enters „inside of,‟
and which are recognizable as having some
common identifying character“

A city is composed of component neighborhoods or

districts; (its center, midtown, its in-town
residential areas, organized industrial areas,
trainyards, suburbs, college campuses etc.)
Sometime they are districts in form and extent.
Edges- dividing lines between districts

"are the linear elements not used or considered as paths by the

observer. They are boundaries between two phases, linear
breaks in continuity: shores, railroad cuts, edges of
development, walls ... "

The termination of a district is its edge. Some districts have no

edges at all but gradually taper off and blend into another
district. When two districts are joined at one edge they form a
seam.
Landmarks- point of reference-
"are another type of point-reference, but in this case the observer does not
enter within them, they are external. They are usually a rather simply
defined physical object: building, sign, store, or mountain".

The prominent visual features of the city are its landmarks.

Some landmarks are very large and seen at great distances.

Some landmarks are very small (e.g. a tree within an urban square) and can
only be seen close up, like a street clock .

Landmarks are an important element of urban form because they help people
to orient themselves in the city and help identify an area.
Nodes- Centres of attraction that you can enter
"are points, the strategic spots in a city into which an observer
can enter, and which are intensive foci to and from which he is
traveling. They may be primary junctions, places of a break in
transportation, a crossing or convergence of paths, moments of
shift from one structure to another. Or the nodes may be simply
concentrations, which gain their importance from being the
condensation of some use or physical character, as a street-
corner hangout or an enclosed square ... "

A node is a center of activity.

 Actually it is a type of landmark but is distinguished from a

landmark by virtue of its active function.

Where a landmark is a distinct visual object, a node is a

distinct hub of activity.
Lynch mental map elements
•Landmarks: prominent points of interest

•Districts: downtown, dorms, etc.

•Nodes: meeting places, centers where pathways cross

•Edges: breaks on the map between districts

•Pathways: paths, streets, etc.

“the criteria of the visual success”

•clarity of city space,

•ambience of place,
•continuity,
•rhythm,
•variety, contrast of
•forms (evoking the sequences of
experience), and
•magnitude of meanings and
functional values.