Module 3 Influential Urban Design Thinker - Kevin Lynch

For this module I have chosen Kevin Lynch as an influential urban thinker to research. Lynch was an American urban planner and author from around the 40’s-80s. He wrote The Image of the City (1960) in which he discusses five urban categories and how people in urban situations orient themselves through mental maps. Lynch also wrote What Time is this Place? (1972) which discussed how the environment can be modeled to provide a better sense of time and place through the understanding of the continuum of the mind.Lynch studied at Yale under the instruction of Frank Lloyd Wright and was a professor at MIT which highlights his level in society. He is known for proving empirical research on city planning, how individuals perceive and navigate the urban landscape as well as his interest in environmental psychology. His books explore more upon time and history of the urban environment and how to better understand individual’s perception of the physical environment as a way to design better[i].

Google Images-Architecture of the City

As a designer, Lynch valued the breakdown of urban thought into elements of understanding. Through the comparison of urban areas, Lynch looked at how people orient themselves and made sense of the city scape. He theorized that we create mental maps as a form of way-finding to become involve in the urban fabric. The way we interpret that information leads us to take action within the urban environment and leads us to experiences of place. As mentioned about, Lynch has laid out five urban elements on urban character and legibility which is what mental mapping consists of, being nodes, edges, paths, districts, and landmarks. These elements help to model urban form based on what he values as a designer. Lynch argues that urban designers have the ability to make places more legible and psychologically satisfying[ii]. Lynch was about creating the perfect city through his understanding of normative theories and the value of city to its spatial characteristics. His theories have received some criticisms though such as how he only talks about elements of the city that are publicly visible to all people and another critics believe his five elements are only addressed through movement. Overall though Lynch helped pioneer the way for urban design, and enlightened us about the capacity for orientation and way-finding. [iii]

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[i] Canniffe, Eamonn. “Kevin Lynch: The Image of the City (1960)” Architecture + Urbanism. Blogspot Manchester School of Architecture postgrade course. 2010 Website

[ii] Lynch, Kevin. ""The Image of the Environment" and "The City Image and Its Elements"" Bblearn. The Image of the City (1960), n.d. Web.

[iii] Lange, Michiel. “review: KevinLynch – The Image of the City” Thethermalcity.nl. Mobile Media and Urban Design. 8 May 2009, Website.