THE IMAGE OF THE CITY- KEVIN LYNCH

In this book Kevin Lynch compares three American cities Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles
and looks at how people orient themselves in these cities. He says that people in urban situations
orient themselves by means of mental maps. These mental maps consist of five elements:

1. Paths: routes along which people move throughout the city

2. Edges: boundaries and breaks in continuity
3. Districts: areas characterized by common characteristics
4. Nodes: strategic focus points for orientation like squares and junctions
5. Landmarks: external points of orientation, usually an easily identifiable physical object in the
urban landscape.
A legible mental map gives people an important sense of emotional security, it is the framework
for communication and conceptual organization, and heightens the depth and intensity of
everyday human experience. The city itself is thus a powerful symbol of a complex society.

Environmental images can be broken down into three (abstracted) components: identity,
structure, and meaning. That is to say, objects must be identifiable as distinct, they must be put in
spatial or pattern relation to the observer and other objects, and it must have some practical (a
door as means of egress) or emotional (the Statue of Liberty as the symbol of welcoming
American freedom) meaning. An object’s “imageability” – “that quality in a physical object
which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer” – helps
bestow this identity and structure.

Summarizing all the discussion which pointed towards the identity and structure of single
element and their pattern in small complex and directed towards the future city form as a whole
pattern. He identify image as the fundamental requirements and its organization involves wholly
new design problem.

Large scale imageability are rare today so effort toward enrich them (imageability) with
surrounding environment can bring the power back and the impact of visual qualities will
referred toward making or reshaping our own city towards a source of daily enjoyment.

Today there are no experimentation done to know how cities are perceived and the book dealing
with the visual form of the city which incorporates the perception and identity.

The effectiveness of the book makes it to be first to read anybody who is involved or interested
in urban design or planning it gives the platform to think and opens up the other realities of
dealing with a large scale designing which has to be more then “functional”. Associative quality

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of human behavior demands certain kind of visual references which unites and becomes the
identity for particular city. Visual quality is the part of the whole design processes but it is the
important phase for the citizens there because they can perceive it other then any issues you are
addressing to. Though culture, symbols, religion are more influential but they are also physically
express through the visual element so the visual form becomes more prominent to build the
image of the city.

He quite well managed in a way of theory part and involves one to the deeper sense with the
example of particular cities and left you with the method which need to be enrich and you can
find similar pattern for your city. Intention of the author clearly seen to left you with the quest
for finding appropriate example for your own justification so the more stress has given to the text
part which is relatively 80% to graphics which can justifies him to not generating any image for
you graphically which is valid for the theory to understand deeper meaning hidden behind it.

Analysis has been done on the basis of the field study which quite seems unbalanced with the
view of certain people of certain area and statically it is not viable as he himself saying but for
the future vision its and important point which came up and also effort shows the validity of the
point in the present scenario in any of the city.

So as other responsibility it should undergo from the person who are doing large scale projects in
the city which involves mass of the public also must read for urban planners and people who are
designing the city itself.