The Image of the City
by Kevin Lynch
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Description
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, the author, 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.Tags
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Member Reviews
Kevin Lynch's classic booklet is an excellent primer on public perception of urban space. Lynch distinguishes paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks to examine the mental models of our environments, in particular Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles. The interesting map discussion together with illustrated guidebooks helped me familiarize myself with Boston for my upcoming visit. Apparently, more than forty years after publication, the Boston Central Artery still cuts the North End off from the rest of the center. Lynch's advocacy of landmarks to structure is a forerunner of the Bilbao effect, although he recommends simple designs people can grasp and understand. Who could draw an accurate representation of Gehry's various show more buildings? Only Prague's Dancing House would probably qualify. The methods appendix is thorough and usable. Overall, highly recommended. See Christopher Alexander for further elaboration on patterns and Jan Gehl for the application in real life urban design with examples from Copenhagen. show less
orig 1960 importante
shelved at: 05 : Urban design
shelved at: 05 : Urban design
la imagen a través del análisis de la escala, trazado, formas
Oct 7, 2022Spanish
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Author Information
8+ Works 1,702 Members
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Image of the City
- Original publication date
- 1960
- Important places
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Jersey City, New Jersey, USA; Los Angeles, California, USA
Classifications
- Genres
- Art & Design, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 711.40973 — Arts & recreation Area planning & landscape architecture Area planning (Civic art) Local community planning (City planning) History, geographic treatment, biography
- LCC
- NA9108 .L9 — Fine Arts 2599.5-2599.9 Architectural criticism Architecture Aesthetics of cities. City planning and beautifying
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 1,053
- Popularity
- 24,290
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (4.11)
- Languages
- 11 — Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 23
- ASINs
- 8
