Architectural thought is many-faceted in terms of the social, economic, and demographic parameters. In this respect, humanity has got lots of benefits of previous times to be shared currently. The idea of urban societies was predominant in the twentieth century. Owing to the theoretical approaches by many architects and researchers in urban design, contemporary American cities gained their particular coloring. To date, history draws up plenty of figures being influential in shaping the cities, like New York, Boston, Toronto, etc. However, the main discussion of the paper covers a scope of features being significant for three independent from each other authors. Their theoretical approaches are composed into appropriate books, such as The image of the city by Kevin Lynch; The concise townscape by Gordon Cullen; and The death and life of great American cities by Jane Jacobs. Dwelling on the main prospects outlined in each source, all three authors influenced the modern shape of huge cities in America and overseas at present and with further implications for the city of the future.
First of all, it is vital to pay attention to the main elements which characterize a city as such. In this respect, all three researchers provide different criteria. However, all of them are loosely connected in their meanings. Thus, Kevin Lynch found more general application of five physical elements of the city, namely:
- Paths;
- Edges;
- Districts;
- Nodes;
- Landmarks (Lynch 46).
The author took advantage of the relevantly long history of each among elements to be prescribed for different epochs historically. Nevertheless, each of the elements supplements the rest by means of characteristic embracement of the overall city description. The image of the city is no longer possible without associating it with the aforementioned five elements. To support such a notion, one should take a look at how John Ruskin previously characterized the functions of architecture. However, turning back to Lynch, it is necessary to state no isolation between each of the main elements. Nonetheless, the author recommends an observer to delineate the philosophically and logically correct distribution of each element into a whole unity of city life. Hence, one should rally thoughts over the prospects of the quintuple juxtaposition of city elements adjusted for the city’s image:
Thus an expressway may be a path for the driver and an edge for the pedestrian. Or a central area may be a district when a city is organized on a medium scale, and a node when the entire metropolitan area is considered (Lynch 48).
The above-given contemplation on the city elements proves an idea of how close and relevant these particular features of the city are. To say more, these parameters of shaping the urbanized community shift constructive approaches according to the modern view of the city’s contours. In other words, the research anticipates the absolute relation of solely five elements to make any city completed and generally applicable to the norms of urban life. Thus, a city of the future should have particular elements which can change the outlook fitting the reality of time.
Kevin Lynch comprehends the overall structure of the city as concerned with a highly developed transportation system, first of all, and residential part as well. The main terms which the author highlighted exclusively to make an observer understand the gist of city planning are imageability and wayfinding (Lynch 9). Thus, the main characteristic of a modern city should comply with the historical and economical development at the time. Based on this statement, the three cities, Jersey City, Boston, and Los Angeles, help one realize the applicability of the city elements listed above.
The environmental images of the three cities outlined in the book, showcase distinct differences in imageability as related to each city. It corresponds to the location difficulties and some individual approaches of the interviewed persons toward their cities (Lynch 16). The further discussion outlines that the most significant and attractive areas in each city are those having cultural, economic, and social value considered with further progress of the population. On the other hand, the central parts of the cities were stated to be with well-developed transportation systems.
Navigation through the city is claimed to be the most significant for current residents. In this case, Lynch makes a fair note that modern people keep up with time and distance: Any breaks in transportation – nodes, decision points – are places of intensified perception (Lynch 101). Keeping this in mind, one might guess why nodes are cross-related to the current landmarks. Such a socio-historical ratio of Lynch’s city elements gives a reason to back up the author’s position. However, the limitation of the study is in the lack of substantial observation of mainstream architectural movements being influential previously and at the time the research was provided.
Gordon Cullen had shown a scope of the paramount city elements as evidenced in terms of crucial changes in city planning during the twentieth century. Thus, the author derives the title of his book to show the current urbanization of landscapes through townscape. In turn, it complements seven elements of a contemporary city, namely:
- Place;
- Content;
- Focal point;
- Closure;
- Street lighting;
- Outdoor publicity;
- Here and there (Cullen 9).
Examining all constituent parts proposed by Cullen, one should take a look at the changeability of human interests and progress reflected in the man-made “stone jungle.” The author relates his assumptions as to the future outlook of the cities in terms of bilateral approaches, i.e. “the existing view and the emerging view” (Cullen 9). Thus, the diversity of the main elements outlined above suits the current needs and concerns of humanity. The question is that the author is sincerely inclined to demonstrate the characteristic features of townscape as applied to the future contours of the city at large.
The first point is that “place” identifies the destination of things and objects within the city. The author makes it specific by saying: “In a world of black and white the roads are for movement and the buildings for social and business purposes” (Cullen 21). Thus, social and business purposes dominate over the overall construct of the city. It relates to the assumption that the growth of the city is possible due to demographic and economical progress.
Content characterizes various subdivisions of the building environment paying attention to such elements as metropolis town arcadia (Cullen 57). This notion fulfills the prescriptions on the categorization of different places in their levels of density and transportation opportunities. It also corresponds to the probable evaluation of different landscape categories. Thereupon, the author sees the conceptual peculiarity of living in the city which is diversified in terms of the main and adherent areas belonging to it.
Under the meaning of focal point, an observer should understand the city as an assembly place where people can meet and provide social intercourse (Cullen 103). It is no wonder that the city is the result of a historically grounded need to house people due to demographic variations. In turn, a so-called “spirit” of the city is interpreted through the points on civilized living and the exchange of opinions among residents. The environment is articulated according to the images which a city incorporates in order to state its uniqueness and attractiveness for other people.
The closure is another element of the city underlined by the researcher. In this respect, one should convey it as an arrangement of streets and traffic throughout the city. To make it more distinct, the author writes: “Closure is the cutting up of the linear town system (streets, passages, etc.) into visually digestible and coherent amounts whilst retaining the sense of progression” (Cullen 106). Hence, it is a sort of unification of relations between roads, squares, and different areas as broken down by streets and flow of the traffic.
Street Lighting has grown into the most eminent attribute of the city at night. Its main function is to provide social and business development in terms of more illumination and safety for residents as well. Lighting is seen to be of great importance not solely by night but to provide living by day too. Cullen makes it plain by stating the following remark: “Here we are concerned with the impact of a modern public lighting installation on towns and not, primarily, with the design of fittings” (Cullen 144). Thus, this component characterizes the city of the future as having no problems in providing streets with light.
Outdoor Publicity is an innovation that took place in the twentieth century and developed into the ideology of a contemporary city. The idea is that this element of urban life. It transforms the shapes of the city seen by day into enormous and fantastic sceneries when it gets darker: “At night it has created a new landscape of a kind never before seen in history” (Cullen 151). Publicity generates the elaboration of the city in its economical growth.
Here and There is the definition which the author gives to the two spatial concepts: internal and external. Thereupon, when people build their houses to further adjust their rooms with some peculiar things, the exterior part also grows into a specific shape outlined by streets and squares. “Whereas internal volumes, rooms, are justified in the purely functional sense of construction and shelter, there is no such fortnight justification for external space/volume” (Cullen 182). Thus, creating inner places for living, residents of a city simultaneously create the outside building environment.
Jane Jacobs was a follower of anti-modernist attitudes in architecture. She could work out the main problem of the modernist approach in city planning based on the isolated character of social, commercial, and industrial parts. The theorist insisted on the mixture of the main city elements which imply the diversity of living itself: “No single element in a city is, in truth, the kingpin or the key. The mixture itself is the kingpin, and its mutual support is the order” (Jacobs 374). The author identified the major place among the most significant elements of the city (streets, parks, neighborhoods) to neighborhoods, as the building component for the city’s growth. Thereupon, an observer should designate the diversity of city elements that are free from any kind of isolation.
The example of New York City and its Central Park amidst the business area applies to what Jacobs highlighted in her book. Moreover, her trendy views on architecture were taken into account when planning Toronto. The place of neighborhoods cannot be underestimated according to Jacobs. She followed the vision of innovative deconstruction of cities to let people be united in communities without points on segregation and separation of suchlike communities. Such a view on articulating architecture of new type is composed into her statement: “The diversity of city enterprises includes all degrees of size, but the great variety does mean a high proportion of small elements” (Jacobs 146). Here is the gist f the author’s philosophy while identifying the place of the city’s smallest units for expanding the infrastructure on the whole.
Moreover, the researcher emphasizes the role of borders which in part mirrored in Lynch’s term “edge.” Borders are significant for they delineate the urban sceneries: “Every place you go in his trip brings you quickly to a border” (Jacobs 259). This is the way the author wants to encompass the holistic meaning of the city in the future. Borders tend to o through constant changes due to the dynamics of the city. However, there is one problem with them. It refers to the fact that order may lead to a dead-end for transportation or residents in the city (Jacobs 257). On the other hand, the author emphasizes the role of sidewalks as concerned with safety on the streets. In this respect sidewalks also serve for arranging well-crafted work of vehicles without any harm to people around and children, in particular.
The evaluation of what the three above-listed authors identified to be the elements of the city urges for further implications. Thus, the viewpoints of Kevin Lynch follow more philosophical features in constructing the infrastructure of the city. Gordon Cullen, on the other hand, describes a rational approach toward shaping the physical attributes of the contemporary city. Jane Jacobs pays tribute to place recreational and safe for people areas amidst the “stone jungle” of the city. Incorporating each among the listed ideas into the whole concept for the city of the future would eliminate particular tactics in changing or improving the building environment today. Such a collection of urban elements presented by three authors gives grounds to renovate current cities enlarged by more opportunities.
To sum up, all three authors influenced the modern shape of huge cities in America and overseas at present and with further implications for the city of the future. Urban dynamics serves as the driving power in the overestimation of the main points to be improved in contemporary cities. To say more, each element discussed in the paper provides an alleged framework to meet new challenges in this new century successfully. In turn, it guarantees particular adjustment of social and business concerns going hand in hand with transportation systems. The aforementioned studies promote a new vision patterned by progressive trends in contemporary society. Further still, it puts forward the idea of arranging living areas to demographic bang widely observed in the world.
Works cited
Cullen, Gordon. The concise townscape. New York, NY: Architectural Press, 1995.
Jacobs, Jane. The death and life of great American cities. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1992.
Lynch, Kevin. The image of the city. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960.