I've been reading lately a very interesting book "The Image of the City" by Kevin Lynch; (MIT Press, 1996). Although intended primarily for city planners or urban designers, for whom, I understand, it has become a classic,  the book deals with a number of concepts relevant to landscape in its widest connotation, be them urban, rural or 'natural' landscapes.

    The generality in his approach stems I think from his central idea of  "The Image of the Environment"; whether the environment is a modern city or unlived-in countryside, the following (selected quotes) hold:

 " At every instant there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings, the sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences."

    How do we build the image? Or, in our terms, how do we construe the landscape? According to Lynch:

     "Environmental images are the result of a two-way process between the observer and his environment. The environment suggests distinctions and relations, and the observer – with great adaptability and in the light of his own purposes –selects, organizes and endows with meaning what he sees. The image so developed now limits and emphasizes what is seen, while the image itself is being tested against the filtered perceptual input in a constant interacting process. Thus, the image of a given reality may vary significantly between different observers" (my italics)  

     ( The words I marked above in italics correspond to a number of concepts which may be traced to H. Maturana's  "Ontology of Observing" which, also in its connections to landscape appreciation, I intend to bring in as a sequel of Lynch's views.)

    Note Lynch's concept of the environmental image as being tested "in a constant interacting process". As long as we keep going back to the same place we never finish to build the image of it; at our next encounter we will build upon previous memories a modified image of the environment, a new landscape. It will change, not because the configuration of the terrain may have changed, but because the distinctions and relations we bring forth as observers are bound to be different.

    Once an environmental image has been construed (albeit provisionally) we might be disposed to understand it a fundamental steo towards appreciating the landscape; if so, according to Lynch, a suitable procedure might be to analyze the image in terms of  three components: identity, structure and meaning. I'll dwell on this analysis in a following Post, leaving for yet another one what Lynch calls Imageability.