Kevin Lynch's Urban Thought and Legacy

Kevin Lynch (1918–1984) is most well-known for his contributions to urban thought in regards to perception

and navigation in the urban environment. In his seminal text, The Image of the City (1960),

he contemplates issues of legibility and mental mapping in the city and empirically formulates

concepts like “imageability,” “the five elements of urban legibility,” and “wayfinding,” through a series

of interviews with residents in Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles. Lynch is also known

for Site Planning (1962), which acts as an applied guide to Urban Design,

What Time is this Place (1972), which examines the experience of time in the city,

Managing the Sense of a Region (1976), which examines the perception of the urban environment