Mental Images Of A City Engineering Essay Research (Essay Sample)

MENTAL IMAGES OF A CITY
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Images of the City
A city is considered one of the dramatic events in the environment, and humanity turns their faculty of sight since apprehension of the environment is achieved through vision. Such visions are important in not only evoking memories but also useful in eliciting responsive emotions. For vision to be enhanced, good images are critical because it goes beyond placing various physical objects into some patterns. A good city is represented by images which are indicative of a balance of the global and local environments. This piece seeks to have an in-depth explanation and illustration of the concept of imageability, and its importance, while at the same time focusing on elements which make a city imageable.
Different cities have different orientations which make them unique. Therefore, each urban centre has distinct manner through which a person can navigate it. For people to be able to move through the city, they have to create a pattern in the mind which acts as the guideline (Milgram 1972, p. 194). The pattern leads to the establishment of a mental picture that one can use to locate places. The ability to walk in the city to different locations without any difficulty is what constitutes imageability (or what is commonly known by designers as legibility) and was coined by Kevin Lynch (Stea 2017, p. 236). Taking New York as an example, there are properties of the city which make it easy for the residents to move from one side to another with ease. That would not be easy without first forming a coherent pattern of various components of the city. A generalized image of the structures in New York is developed by people upon visiting it for the first time. For example, visitors who travel to New York identify some of the most well-known structures and building which for the physical world including, but not limited to, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Yankee Stadium. The first experience of a person as was trying to navigate the city forms a critical element of memory which is used in future for interpretation of information as well as guiding him through it.