New York is portrayed as Broadway’s birth city and a dream city for most people as written by Jean Schopfer (1992) in his article, “The plan of a City”. Although it is a dream city for most people, some people actually believe that a city could affect one’s mind psychologically. Lynch suggests that urban designers should make a city more imaginable. According to him, building a more creative city could encourage its people to be more creative as they react to their environment and everything around us, does have an impact on us.
Lynch has also been quoted saying “People perceive cities as consisting of underlying city elements such as paths (along which movement flows) and edges (which differentiate one part of the urban fabric from another) if they understand how people perceive these elements and design to make cities more imageable , lynch argues designers can create more psychologically satisfying urban environments.” In this sentence, what he is trying to say refers to the city elements.
For example, we can try to apply this theory to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is one of the most famous museums in New York, a must-see site for tourists.The Metropolitan Museum of Art which is located at the 5th avenue in New York is one of the biggest museum with a many different types of paintings ranging from American Decorative Arts which has around 2, 600 drawings to Arms and Armor displays which is one of the most popular part of the museum. Currently, the museum is expected to have a collection which contains more than 11,000 pieces from sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands and the Americas and is housed in the 40,000-square-foot (4,000 m²).
Lynch has come up with many concepts of place and description of a city. Among these, one of Lynch’s innovations was the concept of place legibility, which is fundamentally to make it easier for people to understand the layout of a place. Thus, if we are incorporating this to the Metropolitan Museum, Lynch study would mean that the museum should be designed in a way that the public can walk around it easily. The design of it should have been based on his study of the place. Lynch was able to isolate distinct features of a city, and see what specifically is making it so vibrant, and attractive to people by introducing this idea. This can be related to the museum concept as well. People come to the museum expecting it to be vibrant and colourful to see.
Thus, if we incorporate Lynch’s points, it is quite practical to ensure that a space such as the Metropolitan museum has those standards in order to keep people interested. Mental maps of a city are mental representations of what the city contains, and its layout according to the individual.
To understand the layout of a city, people first and foremost create a mental map. This is similar to when people go to the Metropolitan museum, they actually remember certain paintings or areas that become a landmark for them. Thus, different people may have different landmarks in a museum, which is based on what they perceive is interesting and which they can remember. These mental representations, along with the actual city, contain many unique elements, which are defined by Lynch as a network of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks as described in detail below.
Lynch describes his theory in detail as written below. This can certainly be applied to the Metropolitan museum, New York. The first element is paths. Paths are the channels along which the observer customarily, occasionally, or potentially moves. For many people, these are the predominant elements in their image. They may be streets, walk-ways, transit lines, canals, railroads. In the case of the museum, people observe the pathways along museum, how wide is it, how vibrant it is and so on.
If the path is really long, a person may tend to spend more time looking at a painting compared to if the pathway was a short one. Also, according to Lynch, people observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the other environmental elements are arranged and related. The environmental elements in a museum could be such as the music, the cleanliness, the number of people in at that particular time and the aura of the place.
The second element is the edges. Edges are the linear elements not used or considered as paths by the observer. They are the boundaries between two phases, linear breaks in continuity; for example shores, railroad cuts, edges of development, walls. Referring to the museum, this would be things like lines, or arrows, even the barriers put between the painting and the point where the observer stands. Thus, this is also known as an edge. Apart from that, Lynch also states that the edges are lateral references rather than coordinate axes. Relating this to a museum, it could be things such as may be barriers, more or less penetrable, which close one region off from another; or they may be seams, lines along which two regions are related and joined together.
Besides that, these edge elements, although probably not as dominant as paths as they are meant for a more subtle approach, just to inform people of their boundaries and are for many people important organizing features, particularly in the role of holding together generalized areas, as in the outline of a city by water or wall such as in a museum.
The third element described by Lynch is the Districts. As quoted, “Districts are the medium-to-large sections of the city, conceived of as having two dimensional extent, which the observer mentally enters “inside of,” and which are recognizable as having some common, identifying character”. In the museum, this can be referred to as the walls in the museums which are sometimes away from the main paintings and so on. Apart from that, it also has the feature of being always identifiable from the inside; they are also used for exterior reference if visible from the outside. Most people structure even the museums to some extent in this way, with individual differences as to whether paths or districts are the dominant elements. Some of the dominant elements in a museum could be like the each room which caters to a different art and so on. These rooms differentiate the so called “district” in a museum that makes it easier for the tourists to identify and use.
The is following element is the Nodes; these are points, the strategic spots in a city into which an observer can enter, and which are the intensive to and from which he is traveling. For example, in the museum, we have the entry and exit points for which a tourist may use to enter the building.
Apart from that, they may also be elements such as the primarily junctions in a city or museum, also places of a break in transportation, a crossing or convergence of paths, moments of shift from one structure to another. This is for example, the lift in a museum or a block to another room and so on. This could also be the specific pathway leading to a huge well known painting or an art piece that is surrounded by some barriers or glass to protect it. Apart from that, the nodes may also be as quoted from Lynch; “simply concentrations, which gain their importance from being the condensation of some use or physical character, as a street-corner hangout or an enclosed square.”
These nodes mark a space for tourist in a museum for example to make it easier for the tourists to know which is the landmark of a museum, which paintings are the highlights, which are more important to see, most popular and so on.
Some of these concentration nodes are the focus and epitome of a district, over which their influence radiates and of which they stand as a symbol. There are many focus areas in a museum as well as mentioned, for example perhaps Van Gogh paintings and so on. According to Lynch, the concept of node is related to the concept of path, as since junctions are typically the convergence of paths, or even such as events on the journey. In any event, some nodal points are to be found in almost every image, and in certain cases they may be the dominant feature. Many nodes, of course, partake of the nature of both junctions and concentrations.
The fifth element is the landmarks. Landmarks, as quoted by Lynch in his article are another type of point-reference, but in this case the observer or the tourists in a museum, does not enter within them, they are external. They are usually a rather simply defined physical object: building, sign, store, or mountain. These are for example the many sign board in a museum as well as gift shops outside a museum. Their use involves the singling out of one element from a host of possibilities thus ensuring that this landmark are something that everyone notices and acknowledges. Some landmarks are distant ones, typically seen from many angles and distances, over the tops of smaller elements, and used as radial references.
These are usually the big ones that is easily spotted and recognizable. People would usually use this to refer to this landmark as point of meeting up with their friends or informing others to guide them thru a pathway, even for the museums.
They may be within the city or at such a distance that for all practical purposes they symbolize a constant direction. This is such as the Metropolitan museum in New York as well as other such are isolated towers, golden domes, great hills. Other landmarks are primarily local, being visible only in restricted localities and from certain approaches. They are frequently used clues of identity and even of structure, and seem to be increasingly relied upon as a journey becomes more and more familiar. Thus, Lynch suggests that the 5elements of unique elements, which are defined by Lynch as a network of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks; which are definitely applicable to the Metropolitan Museum.