INTRODUCTION:

The theory of Imageability from Kevin Lynch (1960) is still discussed and applied because it widened the
scope of urban design and planning practice by considering qualities of main urban elements that are
paths, nodes, edges, landmarks and districts. Lynch’s theory of imageability put emphasis on the
component of ‘identity’ and ‘structure’ of the urban elements as two important factors in affecting
environmental image, before ‘meaning’. Lynch put less emphasis on the factor of ‘meaning’ because it
bears an un-fixed and relatively definitions based on the reader’s categorization in society and culture.

KEVIN LYNCH’S THEORY OF IMAGEABILITY:

Lynch’s theory of imageability is discussing the quality of cities according to the legibility factor of the
elements that are perceived by the observers. The term ‘visible’, which he calls as ‘legible’, is a visual
quality that can be understood through studying mental images as a result of people’s memories and
meanings (Lynch 1960).

The urban elements are read or analyzed into three categories: identity, structure, and meaning. His
study focuses on the two most communicable dimension of the conversation of observer and environment,
which are identity and structure.
§
Identity means a distinction from other objects;
§
Structure means a relationship to larger pattern of other elements, and
§
Meaning means a practical and emotional value for the observer.

It requires first the identification of the elements from others, second the relationship to others, and the last
is its meaning. The first and second are the most legible/visible of the physical elements in cities, while the
third is very relative in cultures.
Lynch highlights the five major elements in cities that enhance the imageability, which are paths, edges,
districts, nodes, and landmarks (Lynch 1960). Paths; it is the most legible element in the city image. The
observer walks along the linear form, such as streets, walkways, canals or railroads. Observers experience
the city while moving through it. The path element creates a relation arrangement and relation among other
elements. Edges; these create a boundary between two or more close regions or districts, linear breaks in
continuity. It could be shores, railroad cuts, and walls. The element is not as strong as paths, but for
observers it is an important character in organizing features. Districts are groups of urban landscapes that
have a similar or common character, which observers could mentally experience ‘inside of ’. The observer
always identifies from the inside with exterior reference from the outside. Nodes are points; they can be an
intersections or junctions between paths where observers can enter the points, for example an enclosed
square. It is a break of movement transportation. Landmarks are points of reference that simply defined a
physical object: signs, buildings, mountains, or shops. Some elements can be seen at a distance, but some
are very simple objects that are familiar to the observers.

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These elements must be patterned together as nets of paths, clusters of landmarks, or mosaics of districts
with sometimes overlapped and interrelated elements. Each element is only a raw material of a city form. In
the urban context, all elements operate together. Images may differ from time to time, season -to-season
and day-to-day.
‘The five elements paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks must be considered simply as convenient
empirical categories, within and around which it has been possible to group a mass of information’. The
description of each element is as follows: -
Paths; it is the most legible element in the city image. The observer walks along the linear form, such as
streets, walkways, canals or railroads. Observers experience the city while moving through it. The path
element creates a relation arrangement and relation among other elements. –

Edges; these create a boundary between two or more close regions or districts, linear breaks in continuity.
It could be shores, railroad cuts, and walls. The element is not as strong as paths, but for observers it is an
important character in organizing features. –

Districts; are groups of urban landscapes that have a similar or common character, which observers could
mentally experience ‘inside of’. –
Nodes; are points; they can be intersections or junctions between paths where observers can enter the
points, for example, an enclosed square. It is a break in movement transportation. –
Landmarks; are points of reference that simply defined a physical object: signs, buildings, mountains, or
shops. Some elements can be seen at a distance, but some are very simple objects that are familiar to the
observers.

GORDON CULLEN’S CONCISE TOWNSCAPE:

He was an English architect, an urban designer who carried on the of the Townscape movement theme.
Later on he wrote and published the “Townscape” book in 1961. He was a key motivator and activist in the
development of British theories of urban design in the post-war period. After his death, David Gosling &
Norman Foster collected various examples of his work and put them together in the book ‘Visions of Urban
Design’.
Gordon Cullen gets famous by the Concise Townscape Theory. The “Townscape” book, one of Gordon
Cullen’s masterpieces, illustrated with over 300 works selected from the drawings Gordon Cullen made
during his lifetime, this anthology documents his influential career as an Urban Theorist, artist and illustrator
from 1930 to 1990. The majority of his drawings have never been published before except in professional
reports, and this book contains numerous drawings executed for the pleasure of observation as well as the
product of his many consultancies.

Serial Vision Serial Vision is to walk from one end of the plan to another, at a uniform pace, will provide a
sequence of revelations which are suggested in the serial drawings opposite, reading from left to right.
Place Place description is in a world of black and white the roads are for movement and the buildings for
social and business purposes.

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Content Content concerned with the intrinsic quality of the various subdivisions of the environment, and
start with the great landscape categories of metropolis, town, arcadia, and park, industrial, arable and wild
nature.
Focal Point Focal point is the idea of the town as a place of assembly, of social intercourse, of meeting,
was taken for granted throughout the whole of human civilization up to the twentieth century.

Closure Closure, may be differentiated from Enclosure, by contrasting ‘travel’ with ‘arrival’. Closure is the
cutting up of the linear town system (streets, passages, etc.) into visually digestible and coherent amounts
whilst retaining the sense of progression. Enclosure on the other hand provides a complete private world
which is inward looking, static and self-sufficient.
Street Lighting Here we are concerned with the impact of a modern public lighting installation on towns
and not, primarily, with the design of fittings. Naturally it is impossible to disassociate the two since, as in all
townscape, we are concerned with two aspects: first, intrinsic design and second, the relationship or putting
together of things designed.

Outdoor Publicity One contribution to modern townscape, startlingly conspicuous everywhere you look,
but almost entirely ignored by the town planner, is street outdoor publicity. This is the most characteristic,
and, potentially, the most valuable, contribution of the twentieth century to urban scenery. At night it has
created a new landscape of a kind never before seen in history.
Here and There The practical result of so articulating the town into identifiable parts is that no sooner do
we create a HERE than we have to admit a THERE, and it is precisely in the manipulation of these two
spatial concepts that a large part of urban drama arises.

Man-made enclosure, if only of the simplest kind, divides the environment into HERE and THERE. On this
side of the arch, in Ludlow, we are in the present, uncomplicated and direct world, our world. The other
side is different, having in some small way a life of its own (a with-holding).

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GENIUS LOCI – SCHULZ

Each city has a unique ‘spirit of place,’ or a distinctive atmosphere, that goes beyond the built environment.
This urban context reflects how a city functions in ‘real time’ as people move through time and space.
Viewed through this lens, the architecture and physical infrastructure of a city give way to the rhythms of
the passing of the day and transition of the seasons. This provides the ‘temporal spectacles’ that define a
city.

This context of a city is more formally known as ‘genius loci,’ or the genetic footprint of a place. Latin for
‘the genius of the place,’ this phrase refers to classical Roman concept of the protective spirit of a place. In
contemporary usage, genius loci usually refer to a location’s distinctive atmosphere, or the afore-mentioned
‘spirit of place,’ rather than a guardian spirit.

The concept of genius loci falls within the philosophical branch of ‘architectural phenomenology .’ This field
of architectural discourse is most notably explored by the theorist Christian Norberg -Schulz in his book,
Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.

Norberg-Schulz and Genius Loci

§
The Norwegian architect and phenomenologist Christian Norberg-Schulz is a key theorist in elucidating
the concept of genius loci, which he explores in several works spanning three decades.
§
In his 1963 thesis, his original intention was to investigate the psychology of architecture (Norberg -
Schulz, 1963).
§
Norberg-Schulz (1980) explores the character of places on the ground and their meanings for
people, Norberg-Schulz uses a concept of townscape (although not as Cullen defined it) to denote
skyline or image.
§
He sees the skyline of the town and the horizontally expanded silhouette of the urban buildings as keys
to the image of a place.
§
He promotes the traditional form of towns and buildings, which he sees as the basis for bringing about
a deeper symbolic understanding of places (Norberg-Schulz, 1985).
§
The concept of genius loci is described as representing the sense people have of a place,
understood as the sum of all physical as well as symbolic values in nature and the human
environment.

Concept – “genius loci”

In Norberg-Schulz’s description of the genius loci, as well as in his own use of the concept, four thematic
levels can be recognized: the topography of the earth’s surface; the cosmological light conditions
and the sky as natural conditions; buildings; symbolic and existential meanings in the cultural
landscape.
1. The natural conditions of a place are understood as being based on features in the
topographical landscape, including a cosmological and temporal perspective that includes
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continual changes of light and vegetation in the annual cycle. These characteristic rhythmic
fluctuations contrast with the stability of physical form. This is the genius loci as a place in nature
that we have to interpret when we are changing our built environment (Norberg-Schulz, 1980).
2. Norberg-Schulz gives a special place in this conception of the genius loci to natural conditions,
distinguishing three basic landscape characters: romantic, cosmic and classical (Norberg-Schulz,
1980; 1985). These are also understandable as ideal types.
3. Both buildings and the symbolic meaning of a settlement are important for the genius loci
concept as expressions of society’s cultural interpretation of place. Norberg-Schulz’s analyses
range from visual impressions to the lived or experienced realm.
4. His four methodological stages—‘image’, ‘space’, ‘character’ and ‘genius loci’—illustrate
people’s experience of the physical environment. His aim, however, is to achieve the atmosphere,
light conditions and sense-related experiences of the genius loci.
5. Nature, he feels, is the basis for people’s interpretation and it is in relation to nature that places and
objects take on meaning. He discusses the way in which morphological and cosmic connections are
given physical expression in society’s dwelling and living. He seeks meaning and symbolic function by
understanding the systematic pattern of the settlement. In summary, Norberg -
Schulz conceives of people’s life world as a basis for orientation and identity (Norberg-Schulz,
1980, 1985).

COLLECTIVE MEMORY- HISTORIC READING OF THE CITY AND ITS ARTEFACTS: ROSSI

Aldo Rossi, a practicing architect and leader of the Italian architectural movement La Tendenza, is also one
of the most influential theorists writing today. Rossi is regarded as an intellectual critic on the failure of the
modern movement to realise its projected utopia. In the context of modern architecture Rossi tried to find
out a solution to the problem – ‘what should be the inner logic of the whole structure of a town’? ‘The
Architecture of the City’ is his major work of architectural and urban theory.

To consider the city as architecture means to recognize the importance of architecture as a discipline that
has a self-determining autonomy. Here architecture does not mean the visible image of the city and the
sum of its different architectures but architecture as a construction of the city overtime. This process of
construction link the past and present and thus it addresses the ultimate and definitive fact in the life of the
collective, the creation of the environment in which it lives. To Rossi, architecture is inseparable from life
and society. People create them with an intention of aesthetic and the creation of better surrounding for life.
This intention also goes with the creation of cities.

City and its architecture, i.e. construction, is an originator of the contrast between particular and universal,
between individual and collective. This contrast is manifested itself through the relationship between the
building and spheres of public and private, between the rational design of urban architecture and the values
of locus or place. Rossi wants to consider a city as a unified element - as an overall synthesis of its different
parts. At the same time he recognises the need of realizing a city by parts, i.e. a singular place, a locus

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solus. City and its parts are always undergoing some changes due to natural and man -made reasons. In
this process of urban dynamics monuments are the fixed points and the only sign of the collective will.

In order to develop a program for the development of urban science Rossi tried to translate the points
specified by Ferdinand de Saussure (1966) for the development of linguistics. However, Rossi dwells
particularly on historical problems and methods of describing urban artefacts, on the relationship between
the local factors and the construction of urban artefacts, and on the identification of the principal forces at
play in the city in a permanent and universal way.

In order to develop a program for the development of urban science Rossi tried to translate the points
specified by Ferdinand de Saussure (1966) for the development of linguistics. However, Rossi dwells
particularly on historical problems and methods of describing urban artefacts, on the relationship between
the local factors and the construction of urban artefacts, and on the identification of the principal forces at
play in the city in a permanent and universal way.

Finally Rossi tried to identify the political problems of the city. He thinks of such problems as one criterion to
study the dynamics of the ideal cities and urban utopias. To him the history of architecture and built urban
artefacts are always the history of the architecture of the ruling classes and the revolutionary impose of
alternative proposals for organizing the city. In his view without outlining an overall frame of reference for
the history of the study of the city there remain two major systems for studying the city. They are, one that
considers the city as the product of the generative functional systems of its architecture and thus of urban
space. In this system the city is derived from an analysis of political, social and economical systems and is
treated from the view point of these disciplines. The second one considers city as a spatial structure, which
system belongs more to architecture and geography. Rossi identifies himself with the second view point but
also draws on those facts from the first which raise significant questions.

Urban Artefact as a work of Art:

Rossi is primarily concerned with the form of a city which is the summary of its architecture. Two different
hypotheses are taken here to mean the architecture of the city. Firstly Rossi finds city as a manmade
object, a work of engineering and architecture. Second, certain more limited but still crucial aspects of the
city, such as urban artefacts, which like the city itself are characterized by their own history and thus by
their own form. Rossi’s direct rejection of function shows his preferences to explain the city form as an
object of art. He emphasizes here that functions are dominated by form and this forms determine the
individuality of every urban artefacts. The urban artefacts such as a building, a street, a district are
considered as a work of art, which are the manifestations of social and religious life. He stated that there is
something in the nature of urban artefacts that renders them very similar and not only metaphorically - to a
work of art. Urban artefacts are material constructions, but they are something different form the material;
‘although they are conditioned, they also condition’. To him urban artefacts and the city itself can be
considered as an art for their link to their quality, their uniqueness, their analysis etc. It also appeared
difficult to him to explain the underlying principles of their variety.

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Rossi argues that ‘since every function can be articulated through a form, and forms in turn contain the
potential to exist as urban artefacts, so forms tend to allow themselves to be articulated as urban elements.
It is precisely a form that persists through a set of transformations which constitute an urban artefact per
excellence. He thinks function cannot be indicated as a principal issue in relation to cities like individuality,
locus, memory, design itself. His study is a denial of the explanation of the urban artefact in terms of
function. He rejects the concept of functionalism, which is dictated by an ingenious empiricism that holds
‘functions bring form together’. So he thinks urban artefacts even the city itself is free from rigid rules of
functions, on the other hand, all their forms are capable to incorporate function with some alternations and
transformations if required.

Theory of Permanence:

Rossi’s ideas support the theory of permanence as proposed by Lavendan (1926). This theory is related to
Rossi’s hypothesis of the city as a giant man-made object produced in the process of time. Thus evolves
Rossi’s ‘Concept of Permanence’, which affects collective and individual artefacts in the city in different
ways. Rossi thinks ‘urban history’ is the most useful way to study urban structure. The persistence of the
city is revealed through ‘monuments’ as well as through the city’s basic layout and the plans. Cities tried to
retain their axis of development by maintaining the position of their original layout and growing according to
the direction and meaning of their older artefacts. However permanence may be ‘propelling’ or
‘Pathological’. Artefacts help to perceive the city in totality or may appear as an isolated element as a part
of urban system. A monument becomes propelling when it survives precisely because of their form which
accommodates different functions over time. When an artefact stands virtually isolated in the city and adds
nothing, it is pathological. However, in both cases, the urban artefacts are a part of the city.

City as a spatial system:

City is conceived as a spatial system composed of many parts. Residential area is one of such elements in
the total form of the city. It is closely attached to nature and evolution of a city, and constitutes the city’s
image. According to Rossi this part and whole character of a city challenge an aspect of functionalist theory
i.e. zoning. He considers the specialized zones are characteristics of a city and may have their autonomous
parts. Their distribution in the city is determined by the entire historical process but not on function.

Primary Element and their dynamics:

One of the important concepts derived by Rossi is the identification of the ‘Primary Elements’ of a city. The
urban elements those function as nuclei of aggregation and are dominant in nature are primary elements.
These are capable of accelerating the process of urbanization in a city and they also characterize the
process of spatial transformation in an area larger than the city. These elements play a permanent role in
the evolution of the city overtime and constitute the physical structure of the city. Many eminent cities
started to grow centred on an urban artefact, like monument. Over time these generating artefacts become
transformed and their functions altered. Such elements have meta-economic character and also become
works of art.

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History and the Collective Memory:

The history is the ‘collective memory’ of people of the city and it has an important influence on the city itself.
The history expresses itself through the monuments. Sometimes myth precedes the history of a city and
thus become important. Athens is the first clear example of the science of urban architecture and its
development through history which is initiated by a myth. Rossi thinks that thus the memory of the city
makes it very back to Greece, where lies the fundamentals of the constitution of the city. The Romans and
the other civilizations conspicuously emulated the example of Greece. According to Rossi Rome reveals
total contrasts and contradictions of the modern city; but Athens remains the purest experience of
humanity, the embodiment of condition that can never recur. Rossi believes in the dominant role of politics
played in the evolution of cities. Political decisions settle on the image of the city if not the city itself. Thus
city becomes the reflection of the collective will. Rossi thinks that ‘urban history’ is most useful to study
urban structure. The continuity and therefore the history are important aspects underlying his theories. To
Rossi historical methods are weak as they isolate the present from the past. Urban aesthetics constitute a
science founded in meaning inherent in the pre-existing building stock of the city. Through collective
memory the intellect is engaged to discover their meaning and beauty. He does not distinguish between
continuity and history. Rossi’s ‘past’ was not overwhelmed by the ancients. Rather he emphases on the
cultural stability and inspires its further development in all the ages. He sees building of cities as part of
culture. To him people had civilized nature and brought it under control by discovering the secrets of h er
materials and with them made constructions for the collective purpose. This demands organized systems of
division of labour and commands, and the technical advancement to refine tools for the task.

Jan Gehl, Life between Buildings, 1980

Ultimately, urban design is more about the dynamic activities occurring within the public realm that it is
about the built quality of the space (buildings, physical amenities, etc.). “Inevitably,” writes Jan Gehl, “life
between buildings is richer, more stimulating, and more rewarding than any combination of architectural
ideas.” That is not to say architecture cannot contribute to the experiential, cultural, and social value of an
urban environment – merely that quality urban life trumps quality urban infrastructure amongst a sensitive
designer’s priorities. Of course, there is a relationship between good design and good urban life – in
America; this is most commonly demonstrated negatively, such as when bad design engenders bad
urbanism (by squandering the potential for good urban life).

To ensure an urban space retains the capacity for quality urbanism, Gehl would have the designer take
steps to avoid precluding it. His concept of “soft edges” involves providing certain architectural layers and
complexities that enable certain types of activities, leading to a desirably active and rich urban environment
and society. Specifically, he stresses designing to promote stationary activities that are more prolonged and
entrench people deeper into the urban setting (in contrast to coming and going activities, which are more
frequent but fleeting in duration). “Of course it is important that conditions for walking to and from buildings
are good and comfortable, but for the scope and character of life between buildings, the conditions offered
for long-lasting outdoor activities play the decisive role.”

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“Soft edges” are what really foster public-realm occupation and interaction. These are spaces that flank
and/or permeate buildings where people can settle, work, eat, and otherwise sit and meld into the urban
place. Ideally, Gehl writes, soft edges “link indoors and outdoors – functionally and psychologically.” He
demonstrates this connection with dense, single-story, single-family housing examples (namely by a lucid
sociological link between the shrouded innards of the house, the semi-public porch and yard, and the
entirely public street) but contends the concept holds true across urban topologies: “everywhere people
walk to and from city functions, or where the functions stay outdoors, the establishment of good
connections between indoors and outdoors combined with good resting places in front of the buildings must
be a matter of course.”

Extant soft edges shall be documented and then evaluated according to their frequency (hard edge to soft
edge ratio), depth (degree to which inside and outside connect/merge), vitality (observed activation), and
flexibility (range of stationary activities and their relationship to adjacent/integrated coming -and-going
activities).

William Whyte, The Social Life of Small Public Spaces, 1980

To foster social interactivity, an urban space needs the physical infrastructure necessary to accommodate
actors in the first place. Put simply: an urban space cannot become sociable if it doesn’t have the facilities
about which to socialize – people won’t sit and talk to each other if there’s nowhere to sit! Informed by a
career of first-hand observation and measurement, William Whyte developed strategies for evaluating and
improving such interactivity-enabling infrastructure.

There are three phases to Whyte’s process: assess the visibility, accessibility, and variety of sitting
places; measure the dimensional suitability of each seat; and observe the seating ensemble’s actual usage
to determine overall interactivity-fostering success.

It is most immediately important that sitting places be visible to passersby. As Whyte writes, “if people do
not see a space, they will not use it.” Obviously, the seats must not only be in view but also in reach of
potential sitters: less accessible facilities find themselves less used. Accessibility also involves the
perceived (and actual) publicness of the sitting place - the more private a surface seems (or is), the less
welcoming it effectively becomes. Finally, seat types need to vary across the site to provide for the public’s
varied wants and needs. Variables include size (big enough for one person, two people, and bigger group),
climate (sun/shade, windy/calm), aesthetics (shape, style, and material), functionality (static,
movable/adjustable) and public exposure (along thoroughfare, tucked out of the way).

Whyte offers a few dimensional and mathematical rules of thumb to assess sittability amongst seats.
People tend to avoid seats shorter than one foot or taller than three. Double-sided seats should be a full
“two backsides deep” to ensure both sides are simultaneously usable. There should be about one linear
foot of sitting space per thirty square feet of plaza area.

In addition to compiling the above quantifications, the space should be observed to ascertain exactly how
the public actually uses its seats. Because each space is unique, generalized rules of thumb alone cannot

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fully predict particular sittability and associated interactivity – locally specific factors also hold a strong
hand.

In sum, assessing a place’s sittability involves, first, urbanistically characterizing and dimensionally
inventorying available seats and, second, observing and documenting how people use the seats and how
the seats facilitate social interactivity. Quantifiably, seat plenitude ensures everyone who wants to sit and
socialize can; seat-type heterogeneity supports more diverse breeds of seated socialization.

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

Good city streets support a heterogeneous population of locals and strangers, lingerers and passersby, old
hats and new arrivals. There are certain morphological characteristics necessary to accommodate that
much sociological diversity without engendering disorder. Jane Jacobs suggests these include a clearly
defined public domain (as obviously distinct from a clearly defined private domain), “eyes upon the street”
to surveil goings on, and enough passersby and other street users to keep things safely active (as opposed
to forebodingly lonely).

“Eyes upon the street” is perhaps the most famous (and architecturally measurable) of these related
concerns. Public urban spaces should promote and support natural surveillance by avoiding visual
obfuscations and hiding articulations that create blind spots pedestrians might fear passing. Additionally,
Jacobs calls for the buildings to orient themselves towards the street so their occupants are architecturally
compelled to observe the outdoors and thereby keep an eye on what’s happening: “There must be eyes
upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on
a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be
oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.”

Ultimately, the issue doesn’t stop at safety. A comprehensively visible public space potentiates a
comprehensively utilized public space (as William Whyte writes, people don’t go places they don’t know are
there). If the space can be entirely ascertained and evaluated from its edges, it stands a better chance of
honest, earnest use (as opposed to a space of ambiguous extents which might be avoided altogether for
fear of its hidden mysteries). The more hidden corners and enshrouded edges, the more effort one must
expend to simply fathom the space before s/he can even decide if s/he wants to stay. More often than not,
when faced with such a task, the passerby passes by.

By this measure, the better urban space provides more universal visibility from more vantages within and
along its boundaries. The space syntax team originating at University College London provides a powerful
tool to evaluate this “eyes on the street” capacity. Depth map, their flagship utility, calculates isovists (the
area of viewable territory from a given point in a built environment) across a grid cast throughout the space
and then graphically indicates which regions of the space provide more view (or larger isovists) relative to
all others. Areas thusly coded red is directly visible from more positions across the whole space; areas
coded blue are largely invisible from other vantages across the space. A space is said to have high “eyes
on the street capacity” if it sports few darkly colored, less visible regions and is more uniformly brightly
colored and highly visible.

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