Image of the city

Done By:

Rutuja Lele – 111214022
Neha Ladkat – 111214021
Jayashree Paradeshi - 111214034

INTRODUCTION

Image of the city is a book written by Kevin Andrew Lynch a well
known city planner and designer, graduated from MIT (
Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and a professor there
after.
Lynch describes a five year study in his famous book „Image of
the City‟, that reveals about, what elements in a built structure
of a city are important in the perception of the city.

ABOUT KEVIN A. LYNCH (1918-1984)

 Born in the 20th century.
 Educated at the Yale university, Rensseleaer

Polytechnic Institute and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
 Gained professorship in MIT in the year 1963.
 Eventually earned professor emeritus status
from same.
 Consulted to the state of Rhode island, new
England medical Centre, Boston redevelopment
authority, Puerto Rico industrial development
corp., MIT planning office, and other
organizations.

BOOKS

1. What time is this place?
2. City sense and city design : wittings and projects
3. Good city form
4. Managing the sense of a region
5. Site planning

6. Wasting away
7. Image of the city

What Time is this Place ?
Time place is a continuum of the mind, as
fundamental as the space time that may be the
ultimate reality of the material world. Kevin

Lynch's book deals with this human
sense of time, a biological rhythm that
may follow a different beat from that
dictated by external, "official,"
"objective" timepieces. The center of his
interest is on how this innate sense affects the
ways we view and change or conserve, or
destroy our physical environment, especially in
the cities.

City Sense and City Design
• Completes the record of one of the
foremost environmental design
theorists of our time and leads to a
deeper understanding of his
distinctively humanistic philosophy.
• City Sense and City Design brings
together Lynch's remaining
work, including professional
design and planning projects that
show how he translated many of
his ideas and theories into
practice.

Good City Form
Lynch looks at connections between
human values and the physical forms
of cities, sets requirements for a normative
theory of city form, reviews earlier physical
images of what utopian communities might
be, sees what is to be learned from hellish
images, and helps us place city forms

into one or another of three theoretic
constructs; cosmic or ceremonial
centers, the machine city, and the
city as an organism.

Managing the Sense of a Region
Couched in the deceptively modest format of
an essay (with several appendixes), proposes
a far-ranging program of activity for the
planning and design profession. Modes of
diagnosis, policy-making, regulation, and
design are followed by an outline proposing
how a regional agency might undertake a
program to improve the sensory quality of a
region. The essay concludes with discussions
of the thornier issues of environmental
management, the question of selecting
priorities, and the relations of sensory
quality to
conservation, ecology, politics, and
behavioral science.

Site Planning
Site Planning has remained the only
comprehensive source of information on all the
principal - activities and concerns of arranging the
outdoor physical environment. This is followed by
a case study of a typical professional project and
ten chapters which provide new materials on
user analysis, programming, site planning for
built places, housing tenures and their
planning implications, cost
estimating, mapping, the reading of air
photographs, site design for housing in
developing countries, design
strategies, environmental impact
analyses, and many others - all illustrated
within-text photographs and line drawings
and with Lynch's characteristic marginal
sketches.

Wasting Away
A comprehensive overview of
waste processes in the natural
world and in human cultures of
many eras and lands, discussing
military waste, vandalism and
wrecking, arson, scavenging, ab
andonment and dereliction, and
reuse.

Image of the City
What does the city's form actually mean
to the people who live there? What can
the city planner do to make the city's
image more vivid and memorable to the
city dweller? To answer these
questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies
of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey
City, formulates a new criterion-imageability--and shows its potential value
as a guide for the building and rebuilding of
cities. The wide scope of this study leads to
an original and vital method for the
evaluation of city form. The architect, the
planner, and certainly the city dweller will all
want to read this book.

IMAGE OF THE CITY
KEVIN LYNCH SAYS THAT:
 A city is constructed in space, but of a vast scale.
 A city is described with it‟s surroundings and elements.
 Explains that people‟s perception of the city is important.
 Going through a city from the viewers mind is “image of the city”.
 Elements like nodes, paths, districts, edges, landmarks make a city.

 To make a visual plan (map).
 Analyzing the forms and public areas.
 Understand problems, opportunities and use them in designing a city.

CONCEPT OF LEGIBILITY

 It is said to be the ease with which people understand the
layout of a place.

 To understand the layout of the city, people make a mental
map, which contains mental images of the city constrains.
( varies from every individual)

ELEMENTS OF THE CITY DEFINED BY LYNCH :
Along with actual city, mental representations contain many
unique elements.

 PATHS :
Channels by which people move along.
Eg: roads, sidewalks, rails, etc.
 EDGES :
Dividing lines between 2 phases.
Eg: seashores, railway lines, etc.
 DISTRICTS :
Are medium to large sections of the city, characterized by a wealthy
neighborhood.
Eg: suburbs, college campuses, etc.

 LANDMARKS :
Point of reference. it makes one orient oneself.
E.g: signs, buildings, stores, etc.

 NODES :
Area of strategic spots where extra focus is given.
E.g: busy intersection, popular city center, etc.

CONCEPT OF IMAGEABILITY
 Another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of physical object, which gives a
observer a strong vivid image.

 High imageable city would be well formed, would contain distinct paths.
 They should be instantly recognizable.
 Well formed city is highly dependent upon the elements because, that would
make the viewers their city imageable.

 Remembering your city on images is meaningful.
 E.g: Well designed paths include special lighting, clarity of direction, etc.
 Similarly with nodes, landmarks, districts, edges.
 These elements placed in good form, increase human ability to see and

remember patterns and it is these patterns which make easier to learn.

Circles represent the major elements of the city through
Which the image of the city has been derived from the people.

CREATING A MENTAL MAP
A person's perception of the world is known as a mental map.
• A mental map is an individual's own map of their known world.

• Mental maps of individuals can be investigated .
•

By asking for directions to a landmark or other location.

•

By asking someone to draw a sketch map of an area or describe that
area

•

By asking a person to name as many places as possible in a short
period of time.

MENTAL MAPS CAN BE EVALUATED BY:
• This can be evaluated in terms of identity, what makes this particular
image unique among cities, structure.

• How the image is spatially formed and meaning.
• What values are attached to the image through which one
can locate himself.

Every person has a different mental map according to his/her
understanding of the city.

PUBLIC IMAGE
• Each individual holds a unique image of his or her city, a visual
representation that guides through daily life and maps out meaning.
• Researching a sample of these images can help planners describe a
“public image” of their city.
HOW TO MAKE PUBLIC IMAGE?
The public image of cities was created in two ways:

1. By interviewing several citizens of cities
• Verbal Interview
• Making a quick sketch map
2. By Field study on foot by trained observer

Images gained from the public imageability are used to create a “public
image” of the city i.e. the people‟s view of city.

• These depend upon the elements of the city
• Interviewed images
• Field survey

CASE STUDY: PUNE
Concept of Legibility:
It is the ease with which people understand the city.
•

When any location in the city is given in context with a well known road

or any well known restaurant in that area, people tend to understand/
remember the location/ route much better.
• Eg: FC Road to University Circle.
 One way road.

 Famous Vaishali restaurant.
 Fly over at the end of the road.
 University circle because it is huge union of Nodes. ( circles )

Fc Road, Vaishali Restaurant

University flyover, FC Road

Concept of Imageability:

City/ locality is memorized by images and that is an easier and meaningful way..

Koregaon Park

Prabhat Road

Dagdusheth Ganpati

CoE, Pune

Deccan Gymkhana

Garware College

Elements of Pune city:
JM Road

Paths – i.e. Roads.
F.C Road, Karve Road, Prabhat Road, J.M
Road, University Road, etc.

Mula Mutha

Aundh

Edges – Mula – Mutha River, etc
Districts - S. P College, Aundh, etc
Landmarks – Wadia College, Shoppers‟
Stop Wakdewadi, Goodluck Chowk, Deccan
(KFC),etc

Shoppers‟
stop

Nodes – Appa Balvant Chowk, Modern
College chowk, Breman Chowk, etc.

A.B.C

Eg. For
Nodes, Path
s,
Landmarks,
Edges

Thank You…

Image of the city

More Related Content

Image of the city