is going to produce an emotional reaction, with or without our volition, itis up to us to try to understand the three ways in which this happens. In considering vistas or any linearextension it is interesting to note thatthe optical division of such a lineinto here and there should be doneby bisecting the angle of vision intotwo roughly equal parts and not bydividing the line into two equallengths. This is demonstrated in thediagram. room can change a chattering, rest­less and giggling group of jollychildren into a serious and concen­

Gordon Cullen Archive: A Multimedia Case Study — SAHGB Gordon Cullen Archive: A Multimedia Case Study — SAHGB

Now turn to the visual impact which a city has on those who live init or visit it. I wish to show that an argument parallel to the one putforward above holds good for buildings: bring people together and theycreate a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings together andcollectively they can give visual pleasure which none can give separately. Second, the time scaling of these streams. Change, of itself, is oftenresented even if it can be seen to be a change for the better. Continuityis a desirable characteristic of cities. Consequently while planning con­sent in a development stream might be automatic one may have to expecta built-in delay often or even twenty years in an important conservationarea. This is not necessarily to improve the design but simply to slowdown the process. This also is happening, if grudgingly, in the case ofPiccadilly Circus. This and That: Cullen uses this phrase to refer to the content within an urban environment, including the meaning or significance of a place, often rooted in its history, function, or the cultural values of its inhabitants. In enclosure the eye reacts to thefact of being completely surrounded.The reaction is static: once an en­closure is entered, the scene remainsthe same as you walk across it andout of it, where a new scene is sud­denly revealed. Closure, on the otherhand, is the creation of a break inthe street which, whilst containing the The term ‘serial vision’ was first coined by British architect and urban designer Thomas Gordon Cullen, in his seminal work Townscape [iii] (a shorter version of this book was later published as The Concise Townscape).here as an accessible place or roomout of the main directional stream,an eddy in which footsteps echo andthe light is lessened in intensity. Setapart from the hurly-burly of traffic,it yet has the advantage of com­manding the scene from a positionof safety and strength. This is the watetshed. Up to thispoint we have presented the environ­ment as occupied territory serving thelegitimate social and business needsof people and irrigated by trafficroutes. Now arises the natural corol­lary that if the outdoors is colonizedthen the people who do this willattempt to humanize the landscape injust the same way they already do forthe interiors. At this point we canfind little difference between the two,and the terms Indoor Landscape andOutdoor Room make sense. In thetop picture can be seen the patternedpavement (tloorscape) and arcade.Over this is a building in which aman lives whilst the vault of the skyspans over. To the right an avenueof trees leads out to the hills. Herein this picture of an interior is all thespatial quality of a landscape. Below,the diners are gathered togetherunder the ceiling lights and theHouses of Parliament sit on theperimeter like a model on the mantel­piece.

Book Review: The Concise Townscape by Gordon Cullen Book Review: The Concise Townscape by Gordon Cullen

Seen from above the whole layout shows the outdoor room through which traffic might pass. The traffic has to slow down (a good thing) while crossing the square; the flow is not impeded otherwise. The street is more friendly, the church becomes a real place of meeting, the cross a genuine focal point and a ribbon town gains a centre. environment: buildings, trees, nature, water, traffic, advertisements andso on, and to weave them together in such a way that drama is released.For a city is a dramatic event in the environment. Look at the researchthat is put into making a city work: demographers, sociologists, engineers,traffic experts; all co-operating to torm the myriad factors into a work­able, viable and healthy organization. It is a tremendous human under­taking. The sequence in New Delhi (readthe photographs from left to right) em­phasizes the role of levels and screen­ing in serial vision, for here whatcould simply have been one picturereproduced four times, each viewenlarging the centre of the previousview and bringing US near to theterminal building, turns out to befour separate and unique views (seedescription in the Introduction). The first category of relationships(pinpointing, change of level, vistas,narrows, closure, etc.) is concernedwith the interplay between a knownhere and a known there. The secondcategory, starting on p. 49, will be con­cerned with a known here and anunknown there.Enjoyable narrative and journey: Just as a story unfolds chapter by chapter, urban spaces can be ‘read’ in sequence. Utilising serial vision, urban designers and planners can craft journeys that evoke specific emotions or reactions, enhancing the overall experience of space and creating a coherent urban narrative. First, streaming the environment. It is difficult to fight for a generalprinciple, easier to protect the particular. By breaking down the environ­ment into its constituent parts the ecologist can fight for his national

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The way in which the eye can be led through a scene—vistas may be open, grandiose or screened, for example, by trees. The scene at Bremhill might be a hundred or a thousand years old. It is the archetype of meeting places, church, cross and tree. A common scene? Yet how many others can you recall and how many will there be in ten years’ time?enclosureEnclosure sums up the polarity oflegs and wheels. It is the basic unitof the precinctual pattern; outside,the noise and speed of impersonalcommunication which comes and goesbut is not of any place. Inside, thequietness and human scale of thesquare, quad or courtyard. This isthe end product of traffic, this is theplace to which traffic brings you.Without enclosure traffic becomesnonsense. Again the assertion, This is That, canbe seen in examples of animism, thesuggestion that a door is a face and,more directly, that a window is amouth, can sometimes induce a senseof strangeness but can be very annoy­ing when it occurs unwanted. First among these cases is anticipa­tion. These two pictures clearly arouseone's curiosity as to what scene willmeet our eyes upon reaching the endof the street.

Serial Vision - University of Manchester

The position may indeed have deteriorated over the last ten years forreasons which are set out below.Physics-based precision: This enables accurate modelling of sightlines, lighting and weather conditions, vehicle and pedestrian flow, vegetation, and surrounding infrastructure. Getting the balance of enclosure, mystery, concealment, and openness right is difficult – hence why digital simulations that combine all these different factors are so valuable. Cullen first worked at Berthold Lubektin and Tecton . T here he was involved in projects such as the Highpoint housing complex in Highgate, and the Finsbury Health Centre where he painted the murals in the foyer. Between 1944 and 1946 he worked in the planning office of the Development and Welfare Department in Barbados, as his poor eyesight meant that he was unfit to serve in the British armed forces. He later returned to London and joined the Architectural Review journal, first as a draughtsman and then as a writer on planning policies. There he produced a large number of influential editorials and case studies on the theory of planning and the design of towns. Many improvements in the urban and rural environment in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. He was also involved in the Festival of Britain in 1951. One of the few large scale Cullen works on public display is the mural in the foyer of the Erno Goldfinger designed Greenside Primary School in west London, completed in 1953. [4] His 1958 ceramic mural in Coventry, depicting the history of the city and its post-war regeneration, is on a much grander scale though now relocated away from its original central location. [5] Illustrations [ edit ] Two examples of the Focal Point as it should be. In the past neglect of the Focal Point has not entailed its destruction.