The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch and The World in a Shopping Mall by Margaret Crawford - Essay Example

Analysis of “The Image of the by Kevin Lynch and “The world in a Shopping Mall” by Margaret Crawford by Analyzing and comparingtwo brilliant texts “The Image of the City” by Kevin Lynch and “The world in a Shopping Mall” by Margaret Crawford in terms of accessibility and applicability of the theories of urban planning is a complicated and challenging task. That is why I find it necessary to give some outline of the books and tell some words about their writers beforehand. It is noteworthy that two texts regard the concept of city planning from the perspective of those who live in it which gives urban space an important emotional and practical meaning. These two texts make the reader think about, imagine and analyze his own experience of moving around the city and shopping in its malls-those things that are done almost automatically in our lives. Lync and Crawford try to bring more awareness into everyday living, that is what unites them as writers but they do it in their own ways. “The Image of the City” which at first glance looks as a book written for professionals turns out to be an exciting reading for both city planners and city dwellers. It is incredible capacity of the author who received education on the faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT to tell complicated things in a simple manner (Andrade, 2005, 74). It is Einstein himself who remarked that “if you can`t explain it simply then you don`t understand it well enough”. Needless to say that Lynch not only knew and adored what he was writing about he also could make other readers fall in love with such a strange and a distant thing as city planning (The Image of the City, 2011). It is no doubt that books on architecture were written before but Lynch was an innovator at certain sense that is why his work became a significant event for the reader. What was so peculiar about “The Image of the City?” Lynch reflected over the way in which cities are perceived by dwellers and elaborated a certain methodology in this sphere comprehended by both architectures and local inhabitants. The author did not try to invent anything new, he used his professional knowledge of terminology to create a comprehensible concept of urban planning (De Lang, 2009, 13). Though his narrative manner may seem repetitive to a certain extent, it was utilized in order to explain the nuances of urban planning to an inexperienced reader in this sphere. Lynch was probably one of the first professionals who allowed himself to see the city as an ordinary man and that vision permitted the author to think of urban planning in terms of wayfinding (Tate, 2013, 78). The author contributed immensely to the understanding of the concept of mental mapping (Derek et al., 2009, 89). Lynch introduced the concept of “imageability” of a city- the possibility to create complicated virtual maps or images of the places they live (Gould & White, 1993, 22). “We must consider not just the city as a thing in itself, but the city being perceived by its inhabitants”(Lynch, 1960, 45). The author emphasized that this stable and clear image grants a person a sense of emotional security. So Lynch managed to shift the accent from building and planning a city out of necessity to creating an emotionally saturated space comfortable for the dwellers primarily. This concept was very fresh in the realm of traditional exhausted architecture and urban planning (Haken & Portugali, 2003, 119). Lynch also stated the inseparability of different parts from the image of the city: sequence of events, people, lights, buildings, weather conditions, anything. Lynch looked on the city from new perspective-psychological, artistic, social, historical (Lynch, 1960, 45). He understood that city as a bunch of colors, shapes, lines, structures that becomes a unique visual image for each inhabitants and the overall image of the city is these images combined and overlapped. Basing on this concept Lynch explained how and why urban planners can improve cities and make the life of dwellers more comfortable and the image of the city more comprehensible, more secure, and more reachable for dwellers (Lynch, 1960, 78). The first chapters of the books are the most important for further understanding of the text- here Lynch introduces a reader to the basic concepts which he is going to operate throughout the text and mentions important technical notions. Here we see Lynch`s greatest and the simplest invention in explanation of empirical perception of the image of the city. Lynch distinguishes five basic elements “path, edge, district, node and landmark” which he utilizes to grouping some amount of information around. Paths are described as major or predominant elements used for moving around the city. Edges are also important for building of mind maps but still play secondary role compared to paths; edges serve as “generalized areas”. Districts are actively used city elements of middle and large size which are perfect in creating the image from outside. Nodes are used practically as important foci for the traveler while landmarks, which as noticeable and important points, are used as external references in city image creation. These elements are extremely important for the urban planner as their effective utilization by city planner will grant clear and comprehensible image creation for a city dweller (Lynch, 1960, 35). What must be appreciated about Lynch is his skilled usage of examples that make theoretical material close and invigorated (Jiang, 2012, 168). The three cities Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles are demonstrated with the implication of the technique elaborated by Lynch. Overall, Lynch emphasizes the fact that city planning should not only facilitate daily movement but maintain the feeling of security in a dweller. Lynch probably is one of the first authors who referred to psychology in order to explain and modify architecture, and this human-oriented, it is even possible to say personal approach,h is what makes Lynch`s book one of the most popular readings in the sphere for more than fifty years (Goldstein, 2011). According to Appleyard planning of a modern city requires considering city dwellers not from social point of view only but from their consumers` preferences and abilities (1976, 24). And this is the topic of research of another talented writer Margaret Crawford who dedicated her book to the exploration of the connection between consumerism and architecture. The phenomenon of consumers` society was first introduced by Fromm who predicted that the desire of having would substitute the desire of being eventually in people and they would assess themselves and each other in terms of possessing and buying (Fromm, 1976, 113). But Crawford managed to explore the question of consumerism from unexpected perspective- architecture and urban planning. In simple terms by examining malls Crawford states that the world of malls, which is probably her own definition of consumerism, expanded enormously and crossed the borders of shopping centers: “The world of the shopping mall-respecting no boundaries, no longer limited even by the imperative of consumption- has become the world” (Crawford, 2010, 30). The author speaks about the establishment of culture of the malls which influences greatly our life to a very serious extent. It affects relationships in society, the economy, and the overall daily life in physical sense. In our time people spend in malls a substantial amount of their everyday time because malls are designed in a special way to attract more and more consumers. Crawford underlined that the principal distinctions of today`s malls is their transformation into “social centers” as it reinvented the concept of going out. Now people come to malls to entertain themselves, watch a film, meet with friends, eat, and eventually do the shopping. So shopping was made a supplementary activity making it pure fun. But everything is not as simple as it seems. By making a necessity (buying new clothes and food) a matter of prestige the society has come to the point when people are assessed according to their belongings. Today social classes are defined by the possibility of people to spend money on certain things. Crawford defines it in the following way: “Consumption hierarchies, in which commodities define life-styles, now furnish indications of status more visible than the economic relationships of class positions” (2010, 75). Malls as architectural creations have changed greatly in the last centuries. Today they have the central places on the city maps and attract dwellers` attention with appealing design (Sorokin, 1992, 87). They are the brightest spots visualized by local people with colorful advertisements and huge boards on them. Malls are irresistible and magnetic and less and less attention is dedicated to their influence on human development. Moreover, consumerism affected other types of institutions as well: for instance, museums have become similar to malls, they offer food and shops to make customers buy more and stay longer (Moss, 2007, 89). However, the author does not state that malls have disadvantages only though the problem of consumerism seems crucial for Crawford. She also states that malls made the life of people easier and more affordable. But still unfortunately, negative aspects outweigh positive: “As culture, leisure, sex, politics, and even death turn into commodities, consumption increasingly constructs the way we see the world” (Crawford, 2010, 117). Therefore, these two texts which are so different in their approaches to architecture have one important thing in common-they look into the future of urban planning, the future that is made for people living in the cities in attempt to predict it and make it better. These authors realized that the time when architecture perfumed some utilitarian role has gone and today people are influenced by cities they live in enormously. Depending on the architecture which is create now it will be possible to understand the society we will have tomorrow. Bibliography Appleyard, D 1976, Planning a pluralist city: conflicting realities, Cambridge. Einstein, A 1956, Quotes. Retrieved from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins383803.html Crawford, M 2010, The world in a shopping mall. Retrieved from: http://mark.levengood.people.cpcc.edu/HIS132/LessonDocs/Crawford_ShoppingMall.pdf De Lang, M 2009, Review: Kevin Lynch “The Image of the City”. The Mobile City. Retrieved from: http://themobilecity.nl/2009/05/08/review-kevin-lynch-the-image-of-the-city/ Fromm, E 1976, To be or to have, New York: Routledge. Goldstein, B 2011, Cognitive psychology: connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadswort. Gregory, D., Johnston, R 2009, Dictionary of human geography: mental maps/cognitive maps (5th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Gould, P., White, R 1993, Mental maps. New York: Rutledge Haken, H., Portugali, J 2003, The face of the city is its information, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23. Jiang, B 2012, The image of the city out of the underlying scaling of city artifacts or locations, Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Lynch, K 1960, The Image of the city. MIT Press: Massachusetts. Lynch, K 1972, What time is this place?, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. Moss, M 2007, Shopping as entertainment experience. London: Lexgston Books. Sorokin, M 1992, Variations on a theme park, New York: Farrah, Strauss, and Giroux. Tate, T 2013, From the page to the city: quotations from Kevin Lynchs The Image of the City, Retrieved from: http://tylertate.com/blog/2013/02/05/from-the-page-to-the-city.html “The Image of the City” Overview, 2011, MIT Press. Retrieved from: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/image-city Read More