Customer Reviews

The Image of the City (Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book describes mental maps obtained from residents in several cities such as Boston, Los Angeles and Jersey City. The mental maps were materialized on paper through an interview process and combined with maps from many individuals. And the results are surprising. Each map is a composite image of the city (and hence, the book's title) that reveals not only the character of the place, but gives you a feeling for it. In Boston for example, the streets are very disorganized, so people give directions by using landmarks almost exclusively. On the other hand, in Jersey City, with extremely uniform architecture, directions are given by street number and points of the compass. An unusual discovery concerns very long streets in Boston. They appear on the map with missing sections - these sections are totally invisible to the people interviewed. In many cases individuals were unaware that Washington street in one neighborhood is a continuation of Washington Street in another neighborhood. These blind spots affect how people move around, it affects the directions they give to others and it contributes or reinforces fears they may have about certain neighborhoods. The book moves from these maps and observations and tries to develop rules of thumb for urban design. People feel more comfortable and perhaps more anchored if they know where they are in space and in relation to visible landmarks. Some cities provide this comfort level more effectively than others - this book tries to find root causes. It's no wonder this is a classic.

The urban setting is a composition of nodes, landmarks, paths, edges and districts, accorsing to Lynch. This physical summary of urban landscape may not be satisfactory for some. However, for others, including me, this book is a great help in forming a design perspective at the city level. It does not matter at all if you have just started forming your perspective or working on the final details. The book should be in your library, and the design guidelines should be in your mind, not only when designing a peace of urban space, but also when you are just wondering around.

Given that this book was written in the 1950's, it is still relevent to current urban design thinking. It must have been very innovative in the 1950's.

Once the reader gets past the unusual layout of the book and the out of date language, there are many useful urban design concepts to be found in this little book.

Pathways, boundaries, disconnects and nodes are all discussed from varying points of view, using notable USA cities as examples.

One point of relevance is the statement that there is not one city in the USA that could be considered a great example of urban design (as stated in the 1950's). As an Australian, I could say the same of Australian cities. The Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane are terrible examples of urban sprawl. The north-south spread of Greater Sydney now covers almost 200 kilometres.

The principles stated in this book are still relevant to urban designers today.

Kevin Lynch descibes the visual attributes of cities and towns, paying special attention to how we find our way around, how we build a mental image of these places. It is not only relevant to city dwellers, but to anyone interested in the subject of creating communities, real or virtual. A truly wonderful book, with lots of insightful drawings and images. Highly recommended.

Reading Kevin Lynch is like getting a new pair of glasses. Nothing has actually changed in your surroundings, but you see things differently. Legibility, or readability, is an important part of navigating the city landscape. To study this "we must consider not just the city as a thing in itself, but the city being perceived by its inhabitants" (Lynch 3).

The city is a constantly growing experience. As you move through a city you are experiencing things in an expanding way. "At every instant, there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences"(Lynch 1). There is always something more to add to how you experience the city. These memories and experiences of a city become meaningful to the people who live there. To Lynch, visual quality of a city and the mental images associated with it are of upmost importance when studying the urban landscape.

A city can be considered a very important and powerful symbol of a society. In The Image of the City Lynch explores the cities of Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles revealing the knowledge of the inhabitants and how they view their city. When asked to describe a city, any person would say that a city is a collection of "streets, buildings, sidewalks, bridges," but Lynch prefers to describe the city as a interrelated connection of paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. Paths are the channels through which the observer moves and that constitute the predominant element in their image, whereas edges are linear elements that are not paths- they are lateral references, sometimes boundaries. Districts, nodes and landmarks are also prominent parts of a city. Districts are sections of the city that a person "enters" and that have identifying characteristics. Nodes are points within the city that can be used as destinations or points of interest, such as transit stations. Landmarks serve the same purpose as nodes; however, they are physical objects, where nodes can be plazas, intersections or park spaces.

"A distinctive and legible environment not only offers security but also heightens the potential depth and intensity of human experience"(Lynch 5). An environmental image links person to place and gives a sense or emotional security. An environmental image is made up of three components- identity, structure and meaning. First, you must identify the object, then determine the spatial or pattern relation, and assign an emotional value about it.

The importance that you place on a landscape or place is called an environmental image. Lynch ascertains that there are two aspects of an environmental image, what is distinct within the environment, and what the observer thinks and what meaning they associate with their surroundings. "People observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the other environmental elements are arranged and related" (Lynch 47). Lynch discovered through surveys and interviews from these cities that people tend to adapt to their surroundings, and formulate patterns and identity from what they see and experience every day. People place a significant amount of importance on their personal environmental images, and this can influence their reactions to changes.


As planners "we are continuously engaged in the attempt to organize our surroundings, to structure and identify them" (Lynch 90). In designing cities it is always important to acknowledge the importance of legibility and an environmental image. "When reshaping cities it should be possible to give them a form which facilitates these organizing efforts rather than frustrates them" (Lynch 90).

My teacher suggested that we buy this book while I was in an Urban Planning class and I am very happy I listened to him. He often referred to this book as the "Bible of Urban Planning" and I see why. Kevin Lynch created a precedent over 50 years ago and his ways are still being practiced today. The fact that, as I said, the book was written over 50 years ago and it is still extremely credible speaks volumes for how advanced his thinking was. Cities from Boston to Los Angeles are designed based off of the ideas mentioned in this book. For the final project in this class I was required, with my partners, to redesign an urban area using what my teacher called "Lynch-ese," referring to the architectural language described by Kevin Lynch. I firmly believe that this book is a must read for anyone remotely interested in urban development and design. In my case it helped open up a new window for me and allowed me to learn an aspect of architecture I never really researched before. Since this class and reading this book I've found myself loving being able to study the urban aspects of areas and figuring out how Kevin Lynch's ideas are shown in a particular space. After my positive experience with this book I don't know how anyone can possibly have anything negative about Kevin Lynch's "The Image of the City."

A historical masterpiece in the fields of Urban Planning and urban studies. You shouldn't miss this book if you want set foot on this field.

I really did. I had high hopes for this one. My lack of enthusiasm may have spawned from the fact that I read "Death and Life of Great American Cities" first. I know that the two should be reviewed on their own merits, or lack thereof, but I found that hard to do, even as I was reading. As I scrolled along the dry, boring prose, and pretended to be intrigued by one confusing chart after another, all I can think about was Jane Jacobs' beautiful prose which I found inspiring. This book is highly informative, should you be seeking bare-bones facts, and charts and field interviews, however outdated they might be. It does attempt to make a great argument about the city's need to provide the population with a sense of place, in which people know where they are, or what orientation they're in, or where the nearest landmark is, or whatever. The writer seems to have all that down all good and well, my biggest quibble is that while I was reading, I, myself, felt no sense of place. The writer casually name-drops intersections in L.A, Boston, and Jersey City I have no clue about, with me having to continually having to refer to one of the many maps in the book. I was waiting for the time when they'd be more objective, and come to some sort of conclusion about what works and what doesn't work. But no, they had to nip-pick at this corner in L.A, or that intersection in Jersey. The author doesn't really complain too much about Boston's historic district, or really in general. He seems to associate that with Bostonians having a clearer sense of place and ability to navigate around the city with ease. Maybe. That was the part where I waited for something non-chart related to appear... no dice.
Maybe I was expecting something else. No, wait, that's exactly my problem. I gave it 3 stars because I don't want to completely discredit the thing, now. There are many points made that may be relevant for anyone into urban studies. So, that's that.

Lynch talks about the life in the cities of the modernity, as they are really utilized by the persons. The men who live here organize themself by particular patterns, so they can walk in the streets.
In this way we have a framework which in according to the persons entry in relation with the life of the city, because they play a coherent role just with this framework.
The persons can't be referred at too relations, but their choice must be open to several possibilities.

I'm about a quarter of the way through this book now and it's a very interesting read. Though by now it's a bit dated (published in 1960), and it's not as well-known as Jacobs' 'Death and Life,' it's a relatively short and simple read that can add to one's knowledge of the city. From a planner's perspective, this is a good qualitative research work that relates many lessons about aesthetics and efficient layouts of some famous US cities. They are the kinds of lessons that don't perish over time. For anyone who's into city planning, this is a good reference.