Kevin Lynch: The image of the City; notes 1/22/2014
City Image and Its
Elements:
Giving
visual form to the city is a special kind of design problem-
Urban landscape
is to be seen, remembered, and delight in
Boston, New
Jersey, and L.A.
5 elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks
Paths: channels along which the observer
customarily/occasionally/potentially moves.
Streets, walkways,
transit lines, canals, railroads
Predominant elements
in images
Directional qualities
*along these paths
other environmental elements are arranged/related
May be mistaken as
straight; abrupt shifts in pathways may cause misalignment
Grid based pathways- easier to navigate
Edges:
linear elements not used/considered as paths; boundaries between two phases,
linear breaks in continuity.
Shores, railroad cuts, edges of
development, walls
Lateral references rather than
coordinate axes; important for organizing features in the role of holding
together a generalized area, as in the outline of a city
Directional qualities
District:
medium to large sections of the city, 2-dimentional; observer enters “inside of”
Common identifying character (well defined character of districts- easier
to navigate)
Thematic continuity help define a district:
Texture, space, form, detail, symbol,
building type, use, activity, inhabitants, degree of maintenance, topography
Nodes:
points, strategic spots in which an observer can enter
Junctions, places of break in
transportation, crossing or convergence of paths, moments of shift from one structure
to another
May symbolically hold dominance
over a district
May be called cores
Landmarks: point-reference,
in this case observer may not enter them
Simply designed physical object: building, sign, store, mountain
Some may be seen from many
perspectives and at a distance for reference
Some may be within a city as
towers, golden domes, great hills
Or mobile point such as the sun-
gives reference to location and relation to it
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