Week 2 - Kevin Lynch's "The Image of the Environment"

The reading “The Image of the Environment” from Kevin Lynch’s book The Image of the City asserts that a city is made up of its moving parts – the people – as much as its physical attributes. It is a self-aware entity, being composed of how its inhabitants use and view the city. Lynch posits that a city’s image is defined by its “legibility”, or how the city’s organization affects how people form memorable patterns that facilitate how the city is experienced.  The city is built with structures that are uniquely identifiable and allow people to create their own meanings from this urban environment.

Martijn de Waal corroborates Lynch’s ideas on the idea that the city is built on its organization in the navigator’s mind in his column at http://www.themobilecity.nl/2009/03/29/semantic-wayfinding-mental-maps-and-the-keyhole-problem-of-gps-navigation/#more-440. He states that people use semantic wayfinding, a process of using notable memories of city features for navigation. Waal points out the fault in modern day GPS technology being a lack of these semantic points. While GPS was not a factor for Lynch at the time of his writing The Image of the City, he does note that mapmaking is not a two-dimensional process, but one that relies on the three-dimensional aspect of visiting certain places and forming meaning.

Among Lynch’s ideas on how the city is perceived by its inhabitants, was the concept that the city designer had the freedom to structure the city in his own vision. The designer is not able to select how his city will be interpreted, but he is able to guide the eyes of the people. In his article at http://www.rudi.net/node/22332, Alastair Donald defends the suburbs against claims that they portray moral corruptibility and lack mobility. He quotes Lynch saying that designers should have the “criterion of choice” when it comes to city planning, and that devising a suburb with accessible transportation would be a welcome challenge to any city planner.

Donald, A. (n.d.). Moving beyond the suburbs. RUDI - Resource for Urban Design Information | Resource for Urban Design Information. Retrieved January 31, 2012, from http://www.rudi.net/node/22332

Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the environment. The image of the city (pp. 1-13). Cambridge [Mass.: Technology Press ; MIT Press ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Waal, M. d. (n.d.). Semantic Wayfinding, mental maps and the keyhole problem of GPS-navigation. The Mobile City | Mobile Media and Urban Design. Retrieved January 31, 2012, from http://www.themobilecity.nl/2009/03/29/semantic-wayfinding-mental-maps-and-the-keyhole-problem-of-gps-navigation/#more-440