Lynch and de Certeau

The excerpt "Walking City" from Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life and the excerpts from Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City both had different points of focus, but contained a few moments of similar topic (some of which paired up nicely and others that clashed). Having read de Certeau's piece first, Lynch's seemed sort of like child's play, so we'll begin there.

Lynch's writings spoke greatly of our (as humans) perception of things around us, our senses, and our associations with how we interpret these things around us. Through some experiments to "test" these perceptions, Lynch was able to give a vague breakdown of the different ways in which people understand and move through their worlds (or cities, more specifically). Using five main "points" of mapping, these experimental maps were able to be directly compared with each other. These five points are:

1. Paths: places where people move through or about their environments.
2. Edges: breaks in "pattern", a seam of the city, a dividing element.
3. Districts: neighborhoods, groupings of similar or comparable "things".
4. Nodes: a crossing over of paths, a center point, a concentration.
5. Landmarks: objects that are external and signify specific location.

Similar to our mapping of Chicago exercise during the first class period, Lynch was able to view these maps and create separations and groupings of how people interpret their city (Boston, in these maps). Whereas almost everybody had some sort of path indication in their maps, some were more path based, while others were more landmark based. Districts were vaguely a main point, but more so separated by the groupings of landmarks. A few maps were very specific in spacial relations of landmarks and nodes, while others were vaguely in some relation to each other, but would prove very unhelpful if used as an accurate map. Coming from Boston, and currently living in Chicago, I thoroughly enjoyed the stark differences between these Boston maps, and our Chicago maps. What struck me most, was perhaps the idea of what people consider important in mapping places out. While landmarks make the skeleton of Boston, some of our classmates even pointed out that they didn't even include landmarks in their maps. It was obvious that the grid and the lake were quite important pieces of the maps here, whereas Boston is anything but a grid, and it's sort of a natural given that the ocean is right there. Now regardless of these specific differences, what this goes to show is just how differently we drink in our environments. As Lynch is talking about how to rebuild a city, this issue arises as to what the best way would be to get a rise in people's senses. The one solid point that he speaks of is that people need to be aware of their senses, and need to use their senses in order to have a better city experience (navigationally, emotionally, etc). From these excerpts, however, the issue of which of these five points, if any, would be best to focus one in the "ideal city" still seems to be unsolved.

Lynch did talk about imageability, which is ultimately a way to invoke an image in somebody. His definition is as follows:

Imageability: that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer.

A way to create this imageability, may be through environmental image, which Lynch provides three points for describing.

• Identity: to distinguish its oneness/uniqueness
• Structure: spacial relation (to objects and to the observer)
• Meaning: practical or emotional to the observer

Perhaps, then, using this imageability and environmental image, a new sense of what a "landmark" could be or could mean for those observing it or using it, may arise.

At the beginning of his introduction, Lynch made a few comments on what a city is composed of. In "coordination" with what de Certeau writes about, Lynch would agree that a city is not only made up of immobile pieces, but also of the living, moving people within its boundaries. He would also agree that "only partial control can be exercised over its [the city's] growth and form", and that we seek not a final "solution" when building a practical city, but an open-ended "start", that can be continuously molded and adjusted for continual use and progress. Where Lynch's views seemed to stray from those of de Certeau's, was in his claim that "every citizen has had long associations with some part of his city, and his image is soaked in memories and meanings", and that the city outside the home is confusing and anxious and crowded and dizzying, whereas the inside is home and comforting and relaxing. De Certeau thinks slightly differently.

In his introduction, de Certeau describes the city very physically, as a "wave of verticals" and a "stage of concrete, steel, and glass", as well as a place of tension, a labyrinth, and a possessor. Whereas Lynch wrote a book on the physicality of the city, de Certeau did not speak much more than aforementioned about the physicality. From this point forward, there was a strong relationship born between the functions of the city and that of the flow of language. From the World Trade Center, he looked down upon this massive text of a city, seeing the people writing their way through streets and pathways, not only not being able to read what they are writing, but not fully aware that they are part of something larger than their own personal organism. Though these pedestrians create the city, their actual paths are faint and hard to distinguish, pointing only to what has been (as they are all passers-by, with a point A and point B). This lessening down of space, the removal of the in between, is what de Certeau refers to as the asyndeton of walking. Though these passersby seem to fully embrace this part of speech, they also embody a synecdoche, with an expanded spacial element, giving the walking action a thicker substance.

Something that Lynch did not seem quite as interested in (though he did mentioned it a small amount of times) was spacial relations. De Certeau made it clear that with pedestrians especially, the city is created fully upon these spacial relations. Paths are created by the walkers, defined by them, and redefined. They are given styles and uses, such as illegal, practical, beaten, inventive, etc. Physical objects can be overcome by these walkers, and new paths made between unexpected spaces. For walkers, the rules bend and fade, and they keep on their way. To appropriate these places, two things must be assumed:

1. It is assumed that practices of space also correspond to manipulations of the basic elements of a constructed order.
2. It is assumed that they are deviations...relative to a sort of "literal meaning" defined by the urbanistic system.

These deviations in the norm, or the use, of the beaten pathways separate out these "rebels" from this urbanistic system. This system is part of what would be called a "concept-city". First off, a city must 1) be a production of its own space, 2) have room for forward growth that is unforeseen at the time of "construction", and 3) be a universal and anonymous subject (a cornerstone to provide the backbone for future growth). At the start of this new city, ideas and concepts are thrown around and brought up and shot down, and everything that was not agreed upon is then known as "waste product". These waste product ideas float around the city, almost as an underground societal code to live by, and completely hidden from this urbanistic system that has risen to power. Ultimately, though the city started as this space where things are created and ideas are born, the higher powers will begin to use the city as an object in their "greater scheme", forgetting that it has become so much more than a physical mass since its birth. As this system begins to decay, bringing down the population with it (for their failed ideas are the population's failed ideas), this "under city", full of waste product and fresh, caged energy, begins to break free, wild and unadministered. It is this under-city which will survive and thrive. This whole idea of a concept-city was probably the most intriguing part of de Certeau's writing. Not only is his language visually stimulating, this idea has never been presented to me in such a way. It brought up scenes from movies of underground societies, and the "big brother" idea, but I have never read anything of this topic so eloquently simplified.

As he continued on, mostly with the pedestrian idea which was also fascinating to me, I began to lose interest in his concepts of proper nouns and the naming of places. I believe I understood where he was going with the idea, but it seemed a bit far fetched in the greater scheme of this idea of walking and the city and its invisible structural aspects. The one comment that related back to Lynch's about the home versus the city, however, stood out a bit from monotony of this section. When the woman was asked about what places in the city meant something to her, she said that her home was the only place left which was believable (not the places with proper names that we are led to believe are important). Where the city is filled with light to outline its every crevice and alleyway, there are still secrets at home, and shadows left to be discovered.

More so in de Certeau's writing than in Lynch's, I was presented with visuals and ideas that I had never actually condensed into one cohesive thought process before. I am intrigued by the ideas of this blurred-edge concept-city, and its endless stream of passers-by, and I can honestly say that at this point, these ideas are still too fresh to be able to directly relate them to here in Chicago, though I will begin to post about this relation as I start to figure out how the two might coexist.