The Concise Townscape

Gordon Cullen
MUHAMMAD HAZIQ FARRUKH- F2017-061
ATHER AMNA- F2017-095
AIMEN KHURSHID – F2017-030
DANIYAL AHMED – F2017-080
The concise TOWNSCAPE
• This is a wonderful description of the components that make cities and towns work, from a point
of view that celebrates urban life rather than fears it.
• This book was a reaction to postwar (WW2) destruction of cities
According to Cullen…
“A city is more than the sum of its inhabitants. It has the power to generate a surplus of
amenity, which is one reason why people like to live in communities rather than in isolation.”
“…bring people together and they create a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings
together and collectively they can give visual pleasure which none can give separately.”(7)
Golden Cullen describes three primary ways in which our environment produces an emotional
reaction key to the planner or architect:

Optics: how we see the environment.

Place: how we find and feel ourselves within the environment
Content: ‘the fabric of towns: colour, texture, scale, style, character, personality and uniqueness.
 OPTICS
Serial Vision — how the town reveals itself
in ‘a series of jerks or revelations’, always
negotiating the existing view and the
emerging view.
Cullen says:
“Suppose, however, that we take over this linking
as a branch of the art of relationship; then we are
finding a tool with which human imagination can
begin to mould the city into a coherent drama.”
(9) 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.
OPTICS
• movement through space
• sequence of views
• sudden revelations
• progressive changes of scale, texture, shadows, etc.
• an enjoyable journey & story through horizontal
and/or vertical space
PLACE
- It is a continuous habit of a body to relate itself to the environment. It becomes a factor in the
design of the environment.
- there is always a ‘here’, where you are, and a ‘there’, it is fascinating to think how we might shape
these feelings, make people want to move and explore, fill them with wonder, excitement,
peacefulness.
“…it is an instinctive and continuous habit of the body to relate itself to the environment, this sense
of position cannot be ignored; it becomes a factor in the design of the environment…it is easy to see
how the whole city becomes a plastic experience, a journey through pressures and vacuums, a
sequence of exposures and enclosures, of constraint and relief” (10)
PLACE
Possession — where people creatively occupy space and make it their
own through their daily lives
- Occupied Territory ̶emphasis of shade, shelter, amenity value etc.
which creates pockets of static possession
- Possession in movement ̶ some areas may subject to possession as
people move through them
- Viscosity ̶ mixture of both static and possession in movement
Place : Indoor Landscape and Outdoor Room
• Indoor Landscaping — Indoor landscaping is the art of designing, installing, and caring for plants in
an enclosed environment. It creates an overall pleasant environment by using natural colors, focal
points, ornaments, and sculptural elements.
• Outdoor Room — An outdoor room can include anything from an attached, screened-in porch to a
gazebo to a landscaped area with a bench...
Outdoor Room and Enclosure
• Embodies ‘hereness’
• Enclosure
• Device to instill sense of position

Multiple Enclosure
• Spatial variations on enclosure
• Layers of here and beyond, then cloister walls
• i.e. interpenetrating spaces
• Especially useful in warmer climates where shaded/roofed
outdoor spaces are for living in
FOCAL POINT
• Outdoor Room and Enclosure
• - embodies ‘hereness’
• - Enclosure
• - device to instill sense of position
 CONCERNING OPTICSM FOCAL POINT
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
• that offer visual cues for the respective pedestrians, bikers, specially-abled users to orient
themselves into the pathway
• Idea of the town as a place of assembly, social contact and gathering/meetings.
 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.
CHANGE OF LEVEL
Cullen talks about a great levelling,
changes in the city after WWII

“This explosion resembles nothing so

much as a disturbed ant-hill with
brightly enamelled ants moving rapidly
in all directions, toot-toot, pip-pip,
hooray.” (57)
PLACE
Fluctuation
“…fluctuation: … The typical town is not a pattern of streets
but a sequence of spaces created by buildings.”

Closure
The sense of enclosure due to the interplay between here
and there.
CONTENT
• ‘the fabric of towns: colour, texture, scale, style, character, personality and uniqueness.’
• Content concerned within built quality of the various subdivisions of the environment.
• An examination of the fabric of the towns. Colors, textures, personality, scale, style, character and
the uniqueness.
DEFINING SPACE
• Walls, hedges, roofs are obvious ways
• Subtler ways include:
• Tree Canopies
• Lattice or trellis work
• Metal lighting frameworks, etc.
• Even the slightest gesture (fragility of material) can
• provide a sense of enclosure
 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.”
SILHOUTE
• Reacting against the Modernist building
as a drab slab block …
• "…whereas the tracery, the filigree, the
openwork ridge capping all serve to net
the sky, so that as the building soars up
into the blue vault it also captures it and
brings it down to the building…"
Grandiose Vista
• exploits ‘Here’ & ‘There’ concepts
• links foreground to background
• produces sense of power
• e.g., Royal Palace at Versailles,
France
“…grandiose vista: …it links you, in
the foreground at Versailles, to the
remote landscape, thus producing a
sense of power or omnipresence.”
(41)
MYSTRY
• glimpses of the unknown / half
revealed other
• puzzles & paradoxes
• where anything could happen…
THE MAW
• "Black, motionless and silent, like a great animal with infinite patience, the maw observes
nonchalant people passing to and fro in sunlight. This is the unknown which utter blackness
creates.“

• especially possible in strong light of sub/tropical climates

HAZARDS
• To prevent physical access (linking of spaces)
• but continues visual access (visibility)
• semi-public spaces =sharing the private
“Town squares, once the preserve of privilege, have since the wartime salvage of railings become
public spaces.” (97) “One of the war’s advantages was that the removal of many kinds of not strictly
essential fencing had something of the effect of the removal of restrictions; they opened out
prospects of a more freely flowing world.
Content: Exposure
• Emptiness
• expanse of sky – Openness
• e.g. top of hill, beside sea, middle
of large square
• little evidence of ‘life
Content: Intimacy (within urban built
environment)
• Enclosure
• little sky
• ‘friendly’ materials (bricks, timber etc.)
• contrast of luxuriant plants
• full of ‘life
Content: Animism
• This is That
• suggestion of a face on buildings
• animals/people in building decoration
• fun or annoying
Content: Contrast in Scale/Distortion
• scale as tool in juxtaposition
• scale is not size
• similar scales or contrasts in scales
• variety of moods evoked by scale
Content: Trees Incorporated
• organic life (trees)
combined with built
environment
• can make buildings small
• can make buildings large
• provides extra ornament
• provides sense of
connection with nature
Content: Publicity
• mostly = signage - can add
vitality / humour to scene
• can overwhelm if too much (ie.
intrusive)
• can be offensive or evocative or
boring…
CONCLUSION:
Gordon Cullen’s view on urban design
• Cities should not be too chaotic or too ordered. - Cities should be defined with visible life. Its
fascinating to see what people are up to. Visible life makes city more energetic.
• Therefore, if the towns are designed from the point of view of the moving person (pedestrian or
car) its easy to see how the whole city becomes a plastic experience.
• You can not have a here without a there, a this without a that. The townscape effects can become
great if the relationship is made between the two.
• The concise townscape tells us how can we transform the buildings from meaningless model to
meaningful composition and to refer to Cullen’s concepts to achieve a great townscape.