ABSTRACT
These two chapters by Kevin Lynch (1918–1984) from The Image of the City highlight his early interest and research on the legibility and visual perception of cities. The Image of the City is by far the best known of his writings and has had a profound influence on how designers perceive cities and urban form. His underlying idea in “The Image of the Environment” is that people understand and mentally process the form of cities through the recognition of key physical elements. By utilizing visual elements, Lynch argues that urban designers have a toolkit for making more legible and psychologically satisfying places. Not only do these elements provide organizational clues and way-finding devices for people to orient themselves in space, but also they can help in engendering emotional security and a sense of place-based ownership that comes from one’s ability to recognize familiar territory. Lynch defines “imageability” as:
that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer. It is that shape, color, or arrangement which facilitates the making of vividly identified, powerfully structured, highly useful mental images of the environment.
Imageability to Lynch combines both the ability of the physical object to project a strong distinctive image, as well as the ability of the observer to mentally select, process, store, organize, and endow the image with meaning. In the selection from “The City Image and Its Elements,” the author identifies five key elements that provide urban imageability: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. In the conclusion to the book, he suggests ways in which designers can process this information to provide visual plans for reinforcing the form, physical controls, and public image of cities.