He is an urbanist famous for his Urban Image Components: Who is Kevin Lynch?

What are the elements that stay in your mind in a city? The Eiffel Tower for Paris, St. Mark's Square in Venice, the inclined roads of San Francisco, or the Topkapi Palace or Sinan's mosques for Istanbul. Kevin Lynch is an American City Planner who believes that the identity of every city has its distinctive features that have gained continuity.

Lynch, of Irish descent, was born in 1918 in the northern parts of Chicago. After graduating from Francis Parker High School in 1935, Kevin Lynch began studying architecture at the private Yale University.

Kevin Andrew Lynch (January 7, 1918 – April 25, 1984) was an American urban planner and author. He is known for his work on the perceptual form of urban environments and was an early proponent of mental mapping. His most influential books include The Image of the City (1960), a seminal work on the perceptual form of urban environments, and What Time is This Place? (1972), which theorizes how the physical environment captures and refigures temporal processes.

While he was at university, he saw that the education was very conservative and he did not want to be a student of Frank L Wright, one of the most famous architects of the period. Although Lynch followed in Wright's footsteps, he constantly questioned his philosophy of looking at the individual and society.

After working with Wright for about 2 years, Lynch, who received a short engineering education but did not complete it, returned to his hometown in 1939 to work with Chicago Architect Paul Schweikher. Lynch, who got married in 1941, was appointed to the army as an engineer due to World War II, 3 weeks after his marriage. At the end of the war, he completed his undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and officially became an Urban Planner in 1947.

Kevin Lynch Academic Times

After completing his education, thanks to his passion and determination, he quickly earned the title of lecturer (1948), professor assistant (1949), associate professor (1955), and professor (1963) in the field of Urban Planning at MIT.

After working at MIT for three years, he joined Stephen Carr, who was working on various city projects in America and the world. During this time, Boston's Government Center, Waterfront Park, and many art institutes in Dallas; have also undertaken numerous urban design projects in Minneapolis, Los Angles, and San Francisco.

In 1954, with the help of the Ford Foundation, he conducted studies on urban form in Italy and returned a short time later. He started working with Gyorg Kepes, his colleague from MIT. His work on urban perception and urban forms, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, had a great impact in the field of industry and his experimental research in the field of urban planning made a great contribution as a result of five years of work.

Lynch's work (The Image of the City) was about understanding the perception and movement control of local residents in three American cities (Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angles). As a result of the research, urban designers began to develop a new perspective on urban design, thanks to three American cities. Later, with the help of UNESCO, we talked about how young people use cities; He worked in Salta, Melbourne, Toluca, and Karakow. (Growing Up in Cities)

Subjects he works on

Kevin Lynch has made a seminal contribution to urban planning on how individuals perceive and remember the city. Lynch; has worked on the existence of time and historical city design, the effects of urban designs on children, the conceptual basis of the physical forms of cities and regions in human perception, and useful urban designs to direct perceptions.

Last Times

Kevin Lynch, who became a professor in 1963, fit 5 books into his life. Kevin Lynch, who was an academic at MIT for 30 years, retired in 1978 but still continued his work. He passed away in his home in 1984 due to a heart attack.