Part of Leonardo Ciacci's Theories of Urbanism course bibliography; and yet again, a book which made me change the way I used to think. Lynch performs a smart analysis of three case studies - Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles - abstracting from them the principles for a visual design of a city or, better, for an imageability of the city itself.
According to Lynch, for a citisen/dweller/worker/tourist to be pleasant, a city must help his orientation by offering him enough elements of visual, tactile, smelly and audio nature in order for him to be able to build his own mental image of the city, an usable map that will make him feel safe, secure and oriented.
Lynch isolates five core elements in the imageability of a city. Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks are the cathegories people most frequently use in their conscious and subconscious process of mental organisation of the information related to their relationship towards the place they find themselves in; hence, in order for them to be effective they must mutually reinforce and not contradict each other.
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