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Essay / "The Image of the City" by Kelvin Lynch
Lynch in "The Image of the City" divided his speech into five sections, the image of the environment, the three cities, the city and its elements , the form of the city and A new scale "The image of the environment" lays the foundations of Lynch's theory of urban design through a discussion of legibility, image construction, structure and identity, and imageability. In Three Cities, he analyzes the urban forms of Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles, and identifies the common themes they share.Say No to PlagiarismGet a tailor-made essay on "Why Them "Violent video games should not be banned" ?Get the original essay It first explored how the characteristics of an urban space are affected and how people tend to orient themselves and associate with the space at means of mental maps composed of five elements: (1) paths: routes along which people move through the city (2) edges: boundaries and breaks in continuity; neighborhoods: areas characterized by common characteristics; (4) nodes: strategic points of interest for orientation such as squares and crossroads; and (5) landmarks: external orientation points, usually an easily identifiable physical object in the cityscape by linking the way people orient themselves in the three aforementioned cities. A central concept of this book is that of readability (also called imageability and visibility). Legibility means the extent to which the urban landscape can be “read.” People moving around the city find their way. Lynch proposes that these mental maps can therefore be seen as stable or constantly changing, which is the most visible effect of external factors affecting any environment. The research focused on Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles. As explained, the method undertaken focused on two phases, first consisting of office interviews, where the sampled citizens were also asked to draw up a map in order to make a quick description of the city. The second phase consisted of a systematic examination of the environmental image evoked by trained observers in the field. It is interesting to note how the whole interview and field approach was focused on uncovering the social experience of a city, which not only shows how an urban system works but also how it is perceived by people. This approach reveals a particular compatibility with the emerging experimental psychology of the 1960s, aiming to constitute methods and theories based on the action and reaction of people. This book is, in my opinion, a work of incredible value for understanding how people perceive, live and move. in the urban landscape. It shows that urban space is not only made up of its physical characteristics but also of representations in mental images. Mobility is not just (the potential for) fluid movement, but relies heavily on structuring and identifying the environment using mental maps. So it is important to take into account the opinion of different sections of the society and not just one particular section which in my opinion is one of the disadvantages. Furthermore, Lynch's emphasis on a clear legibility of the urban environment poses critical questions about the current trend. saturate the urban landscape with information. What happens to the overall legibility of the city when every building, object and place wants to communicate and announce its existence, for example Time Square where each advertising display dominates the other leading to drudgery and therefore places tend to lose their readability. Another problem.