The image of the city was written by American urban planner Kevin Andrew Lynch (1918 1984).

After
studying in various places, including Taliesin Studio under Frank Lloyd Wright, he received a Bachelor
degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where, later on, he became
full
professor
in
1963.
His main contribution was to provide empirical research on city planning, studying how individuals
perceive and navigate the urban landscape. This book, published in 1960, also explores the presence of
time and history in the urban environment, and therefore how these external factors affect people. The
first, straightforward approach to the city, taken by every individual, is looking at it, which constitutes a 5sense aesthetical experience through space and time. A urban system can therefore be either perceived as
stable or in constant change, which is the most noticeable effect of external factors affecting any
environment.
On this concern, Lynch states that, unlike Architecture, Urbanism is in constant change: today, fifty years
later, this issue could be regarded and discussed with further attention, as architecture, too, is subject to
external factors and different perceptions, scale, but mostly a cultural aspect, involving the fact that In the
1960s the life-cycle of a building was still not wholly taken into account, as it came up about twenty years
later
with
sustainability
issues.
Lynch

focuses

on

four

main

concepts,

correlated

to

wise

urban

planning:

a
urban
system
has
to
be
held
legible,
through
definite
sensory
cues
its image has to be perceived by the observer, arbitrarily selected by the community and finally
manipulated
by
city
planners.
legibility and imageability would then lead to the identification of a structure, and therefore a precise
identity, which are both parameters through which it is possible to analyse an urban system and its own
elements.
Lynch reckons that there might be different relations of complexity within every structure: these consist in
the
relations
between
definite
elements,
which
are
identified
in:
path_landmark_edge_node_district.
Lynchs aim is to understand the relation between environmental images and urban life, at the basis of
urban design principles; he therefore brings up an analysis of three different towns, putting into practice a
research method whose successfulness is assessed and tested through the results of the analysis itself.
The research focused on Boston, Jersey City and L.os Angeles. As explained, the method undertaken
concentrated on two phases, consisting firstly in office-based interviews, where the sample citizens were
also required to draw up a map in order to make a rapid description of the city. The second phase
consisted in a systematic examination of the environmental image evoked by trained observers in the
field.

This is how, through surveys and research, Boston appears to be perceived only as one-sided, Jersey City
is described as a formless place on the edge of something else and Los Angeles, despite being well
structured, seems as faceless as Jersey City, delivering a sense of bewilderment.
On the basis of this in-depth analysis, Lynch summarises the common themes that have arisen, among
which we should remember : a common interest for panoramas, and smaller landscape features, noted
with care and attention; shapeless places which, although not pleasant, seem to be remarkable and
striking, as Dewey Square excavations in Boston around the 60s economic boom; identification of places
with the social-classes that occupy or use them; the presence or lack of historical marks.
It is interesting to realise how the whole interview and in-field approach has been the one aimed at
discovering the social experience of a town, which does not just outline how a urban system works but
also how it is perceived by people. This approach reveals a particular compatibility with the rising
experimental psychology of the 60s, aimed at constituting methods and theories according to the action
and
reaction
of
people.

From the field-research, what evidently arises is that each individual image constitutes a connection
between urban forms and what is, on a more global extent, the public image. Each of those images is
constructed
and
relying
on
the
5
elements
already
mentioned,
which
are:
-paths:
-edges:
-districts:
-nodes:

the
breaking
2-dimensional

channel
in

of

continuity

elements

within

with
which

strategic

the
the

we

spot

observer

surrounding

areas

common

character
points

-landmarks:

external

references

As we previously said, it is possible to draw out thousands of interrelations between the elements, which
Kevin
Lynch
thoroughly
describes
in
Chapter
3
and
4.
On one side, we could therefore say that his method follows a coherent bottom-up route, starting from the
individual elements to reach gradually the whole; This strategy would be set to aim at continuity,
regularity, measurability and kinesthetic quality, which is the first to provide identity over a continuous
experience through time. Nevertheless, although the bottom-up method has a point, as far as order and
clarity is concerned, it sticks to the mid-century tendency to cathegorisation, which today might turn out
to
be
too
constraining
when
facing
different
and
multiple
realities.
In conclusion, we could say that in the image development process, visual education is the basis for
reshaping what surrounds us, and viceversa. This is in fact the main condition for which a critical
audience can be formed and therefore for which a urban system can be analysed, manipulated and
developed. Despite what previously was said about Kevin Lynchs schematism, we reckon his
contribution has been of relevant importance: first of all, he has fully put into practice what had just
lingered among architects and planners for years: an attention and complete recognition of the citizens
role, that not only lives a town stating his own needs-, but also perceives it providing useful images for
planners to work on. Secondly, the importance of visual communication in the urban space, which brings
together individuals, experience and planners in order for them to communicate on a common thread.