The View from the Road

Written in 1965 by Donald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch and John R. Myer (MIT Press). This book is a response to the lack of aesthetic consideration given by civil engineers to the design of roadways. The book establishes a set of terms and a conceptual framework for the analysis and interpretation of the driving experience. Of particular interest are some of the visual mapping techniques they developed to capture some of the experiential/qualitative aspects of the roadway and the surrounding landscape from the driver's perspective (I scanned some of the maps from the book and included them below). The authors introduce a concise shorthand for describing key "image elements" used by drivers to orient themselves while driving. These image elements are: paths, nodes, districts, edges, and landmarks. They are described in greater detail at the tail end of this post. Perhaps these image elements might serve as a useful tool in developing a terminology for defining the key characteristics of a megacity.

Here are some selected highlights from the book:


The Highway Experience

The sensation of driving a car is primarily one of motion and space, felt in a continuous sequence…. The sense of spatial sequence is like that of a large-scale architecture; the continuity and insistent temporal flow are akin to music and the cinema. The kinesthetic sensations are like those of the dance or the amusement park, although rarely so violent. (page 4)

…. It (the road) also exists as a static, bulky object in the landscape, a substantial piece of the urban scene for those who live along its borders. This presents a two-faced problem, much as if a theatrical designer had to be concerned with the visual form of his backstage apparatus. (page 4)

The Sense of Motion

Where the near environment has many highly articulated objects, the sensation may be one of great velocity, so that the apparent speed at 30 miles per hour on a narrow forest road may be much greater than at 60 miles per hour on a wide open freeway. (page 8)

The Motion of the Field

The total visual field may seem to be generally stable, with near objects moving against a larger background. If these close objects are removed, one has the “floating” sensation referred to above. Occasionally, when the road makes a sweeping turn or the view is very restricted, then the visual field becomes a dynamic one: rotating, rushing, or growing. (page 11)

There is an optimum viewing distance for examining most objects, depending on the amount of detail desired. Optimum viewing distance in a theater determines the price of seats. The cinema tells its story with dramatic changes in the separation between camera and actor, from close-up to long shot depending on what is being said. So it is on the city highway: the designer can decide what he wants to emphasize – a total skyline, a distant character, a single landmark – and adjust his viewing distance accordingly. As in the cinema, contrasting distances will keep his sequences legible and eventful. (page 11)

The Extension of Self

One of the strongest visual sensations is a relation of scale between an observer and a large environment, a feeling of adequacy when confronted by a vast space: that even in the midst of such a world one is big enough, powerful enough, identifiable enough. In this regard, the automobile, with its speed and personal control, may be a way of establishing such a sense at a new level. At the very least it begins to neutralize the disparity in size between a man and a city.

….The sense of mastery is the product of both maneuverable velocity and of sensuous contact. Split lanes, by narrowing the traffic way and allowing it to be more responsive to local form, increase the intimacy of contact. (page 13)

Goal Approach

At the next level of organization, the driver is engaged in building a locational image of his environment, and in orienting himself within this image. In the most direct sense, movement along the road consists of a succession of approaches to goals. These are the prominent landmarks or focal points which the observer moves towards, attains, and passes by, or which represent his final destination. By them he measures his progress and foretells his future. They may be distant goals which symbolize the final destination and change only slowly. Or they may be nearer objects, which are approached more rapidly and which divide the road into visual segments. (page 14)

Orientation Sequence Diagram

[The sense of orientation is] the general image of the road and the landscape that develops in the mind, partly as a result of what is presently visible, partly as a result of the memory of past experience.

… we will use the “image elements”: paths, nodes, districts, edges, and landmarks. Paths are the lines in the mental image of the environment along which the observer feels he can move (highways, railroads, canals, walkways). Edges are those lines which appear as barriers or boundaries (lakeshores, riverbanks, edges of developments, walls). Nodes are the focal points into which he imagines that he can enter (city squares, railroad terminals, intersections). Landmarks are the points in his image which are only reference positions, and within which he does no customarily enter (tall buildings, distinctive signs, monuments). Districts are the areas of some extent which he imagines as being relatively homogenous and identifiable (residential neighborhoods, office districts, large parks). All these elements may be located and remembered from the highway, just as in any other experience of the large-scale environment.