AR 8702

Urban Design [Theory]

UNIT – III CITIES AND URBANISM THROUGH TEXTS AND THEORIES

Presentation on lecture by
HARISH KUMAR C
THEORIES AND TEXTS ON IMAGEABILITY AND VISION
M.ARCH [URBANDESIGN]
SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
VII SEMESTER
 Discussion on
• Kevin Lynch Imageability

• Elements of City

• Gudren Gullen Concise Townscape

• Serial Vision

• Genius Loci and Schulz

• Idea of Sprit of Place

• Aldo Rossi- Idea of Collective Memory

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 • GORDON GULLEN _ THE CONSCISE TOWNSCAPE
• He was an English architect, an urban designer who carried on the of the Townscape

movement theme. Later on he wrote and published the “Townscape” book in 1961.

• He was a key motivator and activist in the development of British theories of urban design

in the post-war period.

• After his death, David Gosling & Norman Foster collected various examples of his work and

put them together in the book ‘Visions of Urban Design’.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 • Gordon Cullen gets famous by the Concise Townscape Theory. The “Townscape” book,

one of Gordon Cullen’s masterpieces, illustrated with over 300 works selected from the

drawings Gordon Cullen made during his lifetime.

• This anthology documents his influential career as an Urban Theorist, artist and illustrator

from 1930 to 1990. The majority of his drawings have never been published before except

in professional reports

• This book contains numerous drawings executed for the pleasure of observation as well as

the product of his many consultancies.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 • Gordon Cullen describes three primary ways in which our environment produces an emotional reaction key to the planner or architect.

• He believes the movement can be read as pictorial sequence , he showed how our perception of time passing and distance travelled

differs through reality.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 • GORDON GULLEN _ PHILOSOPHIES

• “Group of buildings can collectively give visual pleasure which none can give separately. One building standing alone in the countryside is

experienced as a work of architecture, but bring a half dozen buildings together and an art other than architecture is made possible. Several

things begin to happen in the group, which would be impossible for the isolated building.

• We may walk through and pass the buildings, and as a corner is turned an unsuspected building is suddenly revealed. We may be

surprised, even astonished with a reaction generated by the composition of the group and not by theindividual building.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

Gordon Cullen describes three primary ways in which our environment

produces an emotional reaction key to the planner or architect

1. OPTIC

2. PLACE

3. CONTENT

CONCERNING OPTIC

Optics — how we see the environment

• IDEA OF SERIAL VISION

• IDEA OF FOCAL POINT

• IDEA OF EXISTING VIEW AND EMERGING VIEW

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

Serial Vision is to walk from one end of the plan to another, at a uniform

pace, will provide a sequence of revelations which are suggested in the

serial drawings opposite, reading from left to right.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

• Serial vision is a significant element in the cognitive and affective

experience of the perception of a place.

• The visual perception of a pedestrian while walking in an urban setting

at uniform speed results in the sequence of revelations of sudden

• contrasts in surrounding envelope of townscape, and certain snapshots

that shall be unfolded at every hierarchical instantaneous view frame in

the journey, have a potential of becoming a series of image making

impressions on the perceiver’s mind.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION OF TAJMAHAL ”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF FOCAL POINT ”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF FOCAL POINT ”

• Focal point is the idea of the town as a place of assembly, of social

intercourse, of meeting, was taken for granted throughout the

whole of human civilization up to the twentieth century.

• “The visualization and creation of the designer lies in the optimum

utilization and articulation of solids or voids in designing a central point

of attention or interest or activity that acts as a landmark amidst the

cityscape

• . Few of these focal points include entrance pavilions, sculptures,

landscape features, tactile paving, Braille information boards, etc.

that offer visual cues for the respective pedestrians, bikers, specially-

abled users to orient themselves into the pathway.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF EXISTING VIEW AND EMERGING VIEW ”

• “The visualization and creation of designer in the articulation of

solids and voids in devising walkable settlements can create the

excitement in the journey of a visitor in an urban setting.

• A continuous long street with a certain character might result in

boredom, but creation of courtyards, squares, plazas, piazzas,

emphasizing nodes etc., increases the emotional sensitivity of the user.

Finally a suddenly revealed monument or an element adds surprise to

the visitor.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF EXISTING VIEW AND EMERGING VIEW ”

• A long road becomes monotonous.

• Courtyard / Square increases the emotional sensitivity.

• Any monument (Suddenly Revealed) certainly adds exclamation /

surprise

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 CONCERNING PLACE

how we find and feel ourselves within the environment

• IDEA OF CLOSURE AND ENCLOSURE

• IDEA OF HERE AND THERE

C L O S U R E “Closure is the breakdown of a continuous system of

elements i.e. pathways, street network, etc. within a town into a more

edible and ordered composition without perturbing the onward procession.

The concealed life of private spaces created in between the built structures

is paused without lessening the continuity of advancement beyond the

obstruction. Closure is a mere play of shutting down a city’s environment

creating a deviation to cityscape.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 CONCERNING PLACE

• E N C L O S U R E furnishes a complete

secluded environment that is concentric,

still and self-sufficient.

• A person feels that he is completely

encircled with similar elements on

procession through regression until a new

aspect of design is disclosed that creates

an abrupt surprise.”

Closure, may be differentiated from Enclosure, by contrasting ‘travel’ with ‘arrival’. 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. Enclosure on the other hand provides a

complete private world which is inward looking, static and self-sufficient.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 CONCERNING PLACE

Full Enclosure
450 (1:1)

Threshold of Enclosure Loss Enclosure

300 (1:2) 140 (1:4)
SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]
CONCERNING PLACE

IDEA OF HERE AND THERE

• “The practical result of so articulating the town into identifiable parts is that no sooner do we create a HERE than we have to admit a THERE, and it

is precisely in the manipulation of these two spatial concepts that a large part of urban drama arises.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING PLACE

IDEA OF HERE AND THERE

• “Man-made enclosure, if only of the simplest kind, divides the environment into HERE and THERE. On this side of the arch, in Ludlow, we are in the

present, uncomplicated and direct world, our world. The other side is different, having in some small way a life of its own (a with-holding). ”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING CONTENT

• IDEA OF SPATIAL FABRIC

• IDEA OF SPACE AND INFINITY

IDEA OF EXISTING FABRIC

• “The human mind sensitively reacts to the surrounding environment when it perceives two images of vivid contrast (the street and Courtyard)

simultaneously. The sense of space becomes more meaningful with the created drama of juxtaposition.

• Variation observed in spatial configuration, form, texture, color, etc. plays an important role.”

IDEA OF SPACE AND INFINITY

• “The infiniteness of the sky cannot be felt as one observes a clear sky from rooftops or open grounds, as effective as a dramatic visual sense of

infiniteness in the sky that can be felt by a human brain as one perceives while walking, or looking sky in the backdrop of a building or a part of it.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING CONTENT

IDEA OF EXISTING FABRIC

• “The human mind sensitively reacts to

the surrounding environment when it

perceives two images of vivid contrast

(the street and Courtyard)

simultaneously. The sense of space

becomes more meaningful with the

created drama of juxtaposition.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING CONTENT

IDEA OF EXISTING FABRIC

• Variation observed in spatial

configuration, form, texture, color,

etc. plays an important role.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING CONTENT

IDEA OF EXISTING FABRIC

• Variation observed in spatial

configuration, form, texture, color,

etc. plays an important role.”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

CONCERNING CONTENT

IDEA OF SPACE AND INFINITY

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

“ FIVE ELEMENTS OF CITY ”

• Both Lynch and Cullen argued that the landscape of the city acquires form

through the change itself and specifically through relationships of structural,

spatial elements and the interaction between them, the memory of the past

experiences and mainly by human activity within this

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

“ FIVE ELEMENTS OF CITY ”

• Regarding the latter [ GULLEN], special attention is placed on mobility, to the

extent that the landscape is understood in a succession of phases through

movement.

• Especially Cullen highlights the important role of visual sequence (serial

vision) of images of the urban environment for the perception of moving,

and the importance of visual “revelation”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ IDEA OF SERIAL VISION ”

“ FIVE ELEMENTS OF CITY ”

• Both researchers focused substantially in visual form only and the uptake by

humans in a purely subjective way.

• PERCEPTION FORM AND LANDSCAPE

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND

• A figure-ground diagram is a two-dimensional map of

an urban space that shows the relationship between

built and unbuilt space.

• It is used in analysis of urban design and planning.

• It is akin to but not the same as a Nolli map which

denotes public space both within and outside buildings

and also akin to a block pattern diagram that records

public and private property as simple rectangular

blocks.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND – FIRST PART OF ASSIGNMENT

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND – FIRST PART OF ASSIGNMENT

City + Kevin lynch elements + serial vision

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND – FIRST PART OF ASSIGNMENT

City + Kevin lynch elements + serial vision

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND – FIRST PART OF ASSIGNMENT

City + Kevin lynch elements + serial vision

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 FIGURE GROUND – FIRST PART OF ASSIGNMENT

City + Kevin lynch elements + serial vision

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 Historic city and Aldo Rossi
His theory and ideas

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]
 “The Architecture of the City”

• First published as L’architettura della citta in 1966

• Proposes a return to reason & logic, history & memory, & the city

• The city must be valued as a construction over time .

THEMES

• Critique of Functionalism and Modernism’s utilitarian basis

• Autonomous monuments and the permanence of form

• A city of fragments, a city of monuments

• The memory structure of the city

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 PHILOSOPHIES

• Rossi's buildings affirm themselves in the power of forgotten events.

• Time has escaped, but the objects remain like childhood memories, at once tiny and gigantic, or rather measured by an unchanging scale of

their own.

• Rossi defines architecture as designs (forms) which have persisted over time to become types. Those types constitute the history of the city

or its memory, and the culture of the present. Functions vary over time but form remains.

• It is the desire for permanence that is so characteristic of his work. The history of the city is composed by those designs which persist over

time to become types.

• This permanence of memory (meaning) in the city is based on two principles:

memory - Urban facts which are permanent; those which withstand the passage of time and eventually become

monuments.

monuments - These give meaning to the life of the city through memory.

"Change is within the very destiny of things, for there is a singular inevitability about evolution ...The singular

authority of the built object and the landscape is that of a permanence beyond people
SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]
 “ CITY AS AN ARTICRAFT”

Permanence of Form –

Rossi considers type as a logical principle,

which constitutes the form and the

permanence of an object. Moreover, he

believes

that function can be articulated into form, and

form has the possibility to exist as an Urban

Artifact, so form can be articulated as an

Urban Element

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 “ CITY AS AN ARTICRAFT”
Project for the Coliseum
Rome, Italy

Project to transform the Coliseum into a forum for a

centrally planned church

• Proposed by Carlo Fontana, 1707

• Unrealized

• Maintains the idea that existing artifacts can be

adapted for new uses

• “Whereas the Functionalist seeks the greatest

possible suitability to the most specific purpose, the

Rationalist desires to obtain the greatest potential

of adaptation to the largest number of needs”

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 Type and Elemental Forms

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 TYPE AND MEMORY

• Reminiscent of De Chirico

• The city composed of recognizable types

• Types allow people to connect through collective memory

• Autonomous forms as archetypes

• Form follows memory

TIME

• The presence of clocks indicates an event is over

• Roland Barthes saw this fixation in photography

• Like De Chirico’s paintings, Rossi’s architecture

possesses a haunting, melancholy quality

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 MEMORY STRUCTURE OF THE CITY

• Nolli Map of Rome, 1748

• The city designed as links from one monument to the next

• Mimics how our memories work

• Monuments and memory are fundamental to the city structure

• The city and its architecture are inseparable

• Permanence of form

• Type and elemental forms

• Type and memory

• Time

• Memory structure of the city

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 ALDO ROSSI – CITY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY

• Architecture by Rossi is simply being understood by asking how architecture thrived or evolved.

• A concept that emphasizes the set of fragments that build the collective memory for a city.

• The city is not only seen as the physical artifacts, but also as a representation of human aspirations in time and space. With its

traces that abandoned by a city, Rossi introduces permanence as a continuity of urban types in history

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 ALDO ROSSI – CITY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY

• Rossi depicts a new perspective towards an architecture that should not be seen as a lifeless element but as a dynamic and alive

one.

• The presence of piazza, buildings, even a city should not be interpreted as an element that appears as such but is understood as

a note, record, information, or continuity with the existence of aspirations in society.

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 ALDO ROSSI – CITY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY

• Architecture by him is formed by memory, the fraction of information that obtained by each individual senses.

• The relationship that built by each individual will construct the information or memory and blend together into a collective

memory, which is a notion or thought that has been processed as collective thoughts by community or society.

• This notion then becomes the basic elements in architecture, starts from structure, function, to the building shape.

• Not only that, a lot of buildings will appear until becoming a town and then grow much more until becoming a city.

• The city becomes the locus of the collective memory, which is a space that easily grasps as the memory

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

 ALDO ROSSI – CITY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY

• To make it easier, human’s thinking pattern is distinct corresponding to its relation to time and space.

• Modernism is a renewal philosophical movement corresponding to prior society’s thought pattern that believes ornamentation is

the essential element in the building.

• Adolf Loos, as an architect, play a role as an individual that has the notion.

• The collective modern thoughts then unite with Loos’ so there is a shift in architecture at that time, especially correspond to its

architectural style with no ornamentation

SASI CREATIVE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Urban Design [ theory ]

THANK YOU !!!