PART I. LYNCH’S THEORY AND THE RESEARCH CONTEXT
CHAPTER 2. Lynch’s Theory of ‘The Image of the City’
B. The Strengths and Limitations
3. Others Studies in Highlighting the Importance of Adding Meaning
Other scholars from various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, and architecture/urban design are similarly critical of Lynch’s avoidance in meaning observation, which could be seen in Figure I.16.
166 The feelings are related to warmth, attachment, relaxation, and interest of human activity; and the physical quality is related to orientation, movement, and visual delight. He also added the physical satisfaction through the provision of shopping, entertainments, and immediate contact with an individual.
167 Lynch, City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch, p.240.
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No. YEAR WRITER BOOK/ARTICLE
TITLE TOPIC OF CRITICS
1. 1979 Donald
Appleyard The Environment as a
Social Symbol Lynch's study avoided the meaning but supplied with the language for understanding and manipulating urban space
2. 1980 Christian
Norberg-Schulz Genius Loci Lynch penetrated deeper into concrete space in navigation.
3. 1986 Pierre Von
Meiss Elements of
Architecture Lynch’s study has less consideration of spatial mental development by the observers.
4. 1990 Fredric
Jameson Cognitive Mapping In Lynch’s mapping, there is a gap between phenomenological perception and a reality of individual thinking or experiences. The gap should be filled by analysis of social structure and political experience.
5. 1997 Dolores Hayden The Power of Place Through Lynch’s theory, spatially segregated cities are difficult to map. element is in doubt because capacity to act and move could occur in an absence of capacity to represent the space.
9. 2008 Gitte Marling Understanding and Mapping Large City Scapes
Lynch's work to understand the city with an inside-out approach but missed a social and
Variety of Symbols Lynch’s extension of study should regard meaning through a study of human ecology.
Figure I. 16 Table Listed Writings Critici Lynch’s Work
According to Appleyard, in urban exploration, social meanings of urban elements are significant, whereas Lynch’s study avoided the meaning but supplied the language for understanding and manipulating urban space.168 Studying meaning in urban exploration is a harder observation than studying identity and structure because it is relational to
168 Donald Appleyard, ‘The Environment as a Social Symbol: Within a Theory of Environmental Action and Perception’, Journal of the American Planning Association, 45 (1979), 143–53.
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the observers’ background.169 Koseoglu adds that spatial information of urban exploration consists of the analysis characteristics of space and social meaning given by the observers.170 The social meaning analysis is achieved by observing how they perceive and understand the space through the psycho-cognitive process in their mind and feeling. Social meaning also develops social symbols amongst people in particular areas that are intended or perceived as representative of someone or some special groups.171 In observing meaning, Gitte Marling has extended Lynch’s imageability to the social/cultural observation of people. Marling reformulated Lynch's methods since she believed that they lacked a social and cultural dimension; hence she created a more sociological and anthropological approach to understanding the city setting.172 She suggests new methods in terms of social science, such as investigation of lifestyle through spatial practice in everyday life; these are to accommodate the current changing in car ownership and mobility, urban sprawl and historic buildings. The spatial practice investigation is achieved by a method of storytelling, where the respondents tell of their experiences of part of the city; this is a type of investigation that is not only focused on people's ability in mapping the elements but also on people's value and lifestyle.
Similarly to Marling, Lewicka stated that understanding of the environment provided by studies, such as in Lynch’s theory, creates an emotional bond that leads to place attachment study.173 The attachment is an emotional bond to places as a requirement of people’s psychological balance and good adjustment to their environments, and it will give people the sense of stability in the changing world.174
People's navigational ability does not represent their true environmental experiences.
The experience consists not only the capacity to move/act but also people's behaviour in the setting (or known as spatial behaviour).175 Lynch identified meaning in legibility equates people's direct psychological feeling to places in navigational ability, which could bring a sense of social role and emotional security. It is only related to the memory of the individual, not the memory that belongs to the place and develops by the citizens from time to time. Scale on Place Attachment’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Elsevier, 30 (2010), 35–51.
174 Lewicka, ‘Place Attachment, Place Identity, and Place Memory: Restoring the Forgotten City Past’.
175 Boyowa A. Chokor, ‘Pattern of Representation of Countries in Cognitive Maps of the World with Special Reference to Africa’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23 (2003), 427–37.
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According to Koseoglu and Onder, meaning observation of urban elements is a process to understand, analyse and evaluate urban spaces, which are not only through the navigational elements, but also mentally to process by the observers.176 Additionally, both Norberg-Schulz and Pierre von Meiss wrote that Lynch's study established an orientation of a large-scale environment, using sign and familiar situations. The situation penetrated deeper to the concrete urban elements in people's navigation, with less consideration of the spatial mental development by the observer.177
According to Hayden, Lynch’s legibility observation through maps could not identify the spatial segregation of cities affected by the discriminations of power.178 Every place implicitly has power that develops people’s public memory to involve shared time in the specific shared place as a social phenomenon. Lynch misplaced the term ‘seeing/reading' onto ‘evaluating' while these two terms have different definitions. His analysis could thus miss the historical and anthropological layers of urban spaces; that for some urban settings, these layers are crucial in forming cities. They are known as space layers in physical and cultural terms besides historical layer of space.179 The analysis of urban spaces should cover all layers of the space: physical, historical, and cultural layers.
Lynch wrote in Imageability theory that the development of meaning through the study of historical and anthropological layers is automatically embedded in the legibility dimension of the elements; the stronger their legibility quality, the stronger the meaning.
However on Lynch’s later writings, he acknowledged the effect of considering historical and anthropological layers in reading urban spaces without specifically revisiting his theory of Imageability. Nas extends Lynch’s theory by adding the idea of human ecology through an anthropological approach.180 Nas wrote that through a meaning observation, urban spaces with specific social phenomena could be understood in its distribution.
In comparing meaning and physical characteristics (legibility) of spaces, this research applies ideas from D Hayden, B.A. Chokor and E Koseoglu et.al. The physical characteristic of spaces is one part of urban observation, besides social meaning observation.181 This meaning is affected by people’s spatial experiences, which are
176 Koseoglu and Onder.
177 Pierre Von Meiss, Elements of Architecture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Publisher, 1986); Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci; Towards Phenomenology of Architecture (London:
Academy Editions, 1980).
178 Hayden.
179 Koseoglu and Onder.
180 Peter J.M. Nas, Marlies de Groot and Michelle Schut, ‘Introduction: Variety of Symbols’, in Cities Full of Symbols, Theory of Urban Space and Culture, ed. by Peter J.M. Nas (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2011); Nas.
181 Koseoglu and Onder.
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developed not only by navigational ability (as in Lynch’s theory), but also spatial behaviour.182Instead of meaning that is developed individually through spatial experiences, meaning is also understood based on public memory that is undertaken through a study of history and anthropology.183
In a conceptual framework and tools of meaning in urban observation, this research applies ideas from D Appleyard, C Norberg-Schulz, P Von-Meiss, and M Lewicka (see also Chapter 3 and 4). The study of meaning in urban observation is un-avoided; it identifies symbols (or significant urban elements) of the society.184 The tool to observe meaning is by investigating psychological attachment of the observers to the spaces.185 The scale of urban setting matters in urban observation, which legibility as in Lynch’s theory is more applicable in large-scale environments.186
The ideas of extending Lynch’s theory from F Jameson and G Marling would be important for further research. These extensions were undertaken through a study of social structure and political experiences187, and through an exploration of lifestyle by storytelling.188 They could be considered after identifying symbols or significant urban elements to specific society as investigated by this research, to enrich the information from the participants and the authority.
182 Chokor.
183 Hayden.
184 Appleyard.
185 Lewicka, ‘What Makes Neighborhood Different from Home and City? Effects of Place Scale on Place Attachment’.
186 Norberg-Schulz; Von Meiss.
187 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, Narrative as a Socially Simbolic Act (Cambridge:
Cornell University Press, 1981).
188 Marling.
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