Kevin Lynch's The Image Of The Environment

Over the years, the global environment has become more and more corrupt. In the book, The Image of the Environment (1960), author Kevin Lynch examines how observers take in information of the city. He uses Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles as examples of this. Lynch disclosed that users understood their surroundings in consistent and predictable ways. They form mental maps with five elements such as, paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Many people are not aware of what is surrounding them. They do not see their environment as anything special or different. They just see it as something that is there, rather than something that was built for us. That we, humans, built for us. For example, Lynch states, “they are hardly aware of the potential value of harmonious surroundings, a world which they may have briefly glimpsed only as tourists or as escaped vacationers.” In other words, we are so accustomed to what we see every day such as, buildings, houses, signs and cars, that people do not stop to think why or how all of this is around us came about.
In addition, nowadays people do not know what it is like to really be lost.
We have devices such as, maps, street numbers, and route signs to help us find our way around the city. Lynch explains the process of way-finding as “the strategic link is the environmental image, the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an individual.” This has to do with the immediate sensation and past experiences that one remembers, therefore it is easier to “interpret information and to guide action.” The ability to remember a certain place can tiger an emotional connection for that person towards that particular place. Lynch argues that “a clear image of the surroundings is thus a useful basis for individual
growth.”
Lynch mentions that in our world, most people would say they would be about to navigate in Jersey City, but only at the cost of some effort and uncertainty. He states, “The emotional satisfaction, the framework for communication or conceptual organization, the new depths that it may bring to everyday experience.” Even if our current city environment is not corrupt as imposed to an intolerable force on those who are familiar with it, these are still pleasures we lack. In addition, Lynch discusses environmental images as “the result of a two-way process between the observer and his environment.” How and what the observer sees, is all perspective. One person may see something and interpret it differently than someone else. Also, one person may capture the meaning of an image faster, while someone else takes longer, trying to see it in their own perspective.
Many people see the world as something that already existed rather than something we have created. In the book, The Image of the Environment, by Kevin Lynch examines the way observers view their surroundings in their environment. We don’t think about how things are created because we are just used to the cities being that way. For example, maps, signs, and pathways were invented to so people would be able to manage getting around the city without getting lost. In addition, every person has a different environmental image. We all see things at our own understanding. However, this does not mean any ideas are correct or incorrect because there is no such thing when it comes to people’s perspective. Lynch writes, “We are now able to develop our image of the environment by operation on the external physical shape as well as by an internal learning process.”