The Concise Townscape

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I below left are delicate lines drawn ing to traffic, connected by lightI at danger points and not ponderous chains which warn the unthinkingII and stuffy barriers, like those shown pedestrian. These are direct and:1 below, which are right outside the practical steps taken to avoid disaster,

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. Cullen was born in Calverley, Pudsey, near Leeds, Yorkshire, England. He studied architecture at the Royal Polytechnic Institution, the present day University of Westminster, and subsequently worked as a draughtsman in various architects' offices including that of Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton, but he never qualified or practised as an architect. Cullen’s skill as an architectural illustrator was greatly admired and he received many illustrative commissions such as the 1943 County of London Plan, Kynoch Press’s 1940 diary and the 1955 Cambridge Christmas Book, as well as some studies of the State Apartments at Windsor Castle. Cullen is therefore closely associated with the three decades-long Townscape campaign, initiated and promoted by the prestigious London-based magazine The Architectural Review, which espoused a visual modern-picturesque approach to city design. Though Cullen is well known, he is little studied and--owing specifically to the malleability of and contradictions in his legacy--even less understood. In examining his urban ideas, most scholars have placed him in the history of urban design. An in-depth study of Cullen's printed image and modus operandi, however, is conspicuously missing. This study fills this gap. It provides a structural understanding of Cullen's massive popularity and influence through his image-making trade--its professional status, income sources, clients, norms of success, production modes--and through his drawings. These influences work palpably beyond urban design and Townscape: they signal a major shift in the role of image makers and the status of the image in the production and consumption of popular architecture in the postwar era.Cullen’s concerns with visual literacy have been well defined in this book with its extensive bibliographies and relevant illustrations. Not only does Engler provide a valuable insight into ‘Mr Townscape’ and his place in the history of urban design and planning, she also shows his continuing influence on imagining planned landscapes." His archive, consisting of 125 boxes, is a very diverse and rich collection, and includes records of projects he worked on, his work with The Architectural Review and his time in other countries including Barbados, France and India. buildings and by manipulating scaleone can obviously cause space toextend or diminish. (In the way thatsculptured figures on buildings areoften much smaller than life size in The layout of an urban area should take Atlas’ reasoning into account. It has to do with the real-world dimensions of geometry, time, and atmosphere. In essence, the urban Townscape is divided into several critical components. People can identify a location physically and emotionally thanks to the Townscape. Townscape should be planned since it significantly impacts how a community grows in the area. The art of constructing an environment significant to a city is known as Townscape. Finally, this book has pioneered the idea of Townscape and has dramatically influenced architects, planners, and other people interested in city aesthetics.

All that remains is to join them together into a new pattern created bythe warmth and power and vitality of human imagination so that webuild the home of man. At the last CovSoc meeting we heard a presentation from Lesley Durbin about the restoration of the Cullen tile mural in the Lower Precinct. But who was Gordon Cullen and how did he come to be designing a mural in Coventry? Firstly we have to rid ourselves of the thought that the excitementand drama that we seek can be born automatically out of the scientificresearch and solutions arrived at by the technical man (or the technicalhalf of the brain). We naturally accept these solutions, but are notentirely bound by them. In fact we cannot be entirely bound by thembecause the scientific solution is based on the best that can be made of Examine what this means. Our original aim is to manipulate theelements of the town so that an impact on the emotions is achieved.A long straight road has little impact because the initial view is soondigested and becomes monotonous. The human mind reacts to a con­trast, to the difference between things, ann when two pictures (the streetand the courtyard) are in the mind at the same time, a vivid contrast isfelt and the town becomes visible in a deeper sense. It comes alivethrough the drama of juxtaposition. Unless this happens the town willslip past us featureless and inert.

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One of the most rewarding pastimesis to take a really incisive writing in­strument and draw on white paper orwalls. In these two balconies atCheltenham the slender and cursiveironwork is drawn on to the simplewhite walls creating a most preciseand delicate foil, whilst the moresturdy serpent of the seat slides intosupporting posi tion like a satire onthe rough utilitarianism of theboards. The fourth and last section of thecasebook concerns itself not with thevarious moves in the game but withthe intrinsic quality of things made­structures, bridges, paving, letteringand trim-which create the environ­ment. Another traffic island, at Melksham, set in what is really a square; instead of the houses, cross and floor forming a ROOM, the sea of tarmac has blown this conception sky high and we are left with the devices of garden craftsmen. The paradox of the scene is that this is a cul-de-sac, believe it or not there is no through traffic. Having lost the day to the road engineer the amenity committees decide they must hot up the immediate vicinity of the cross with the kind of motifs that warm the heart of the modern municipal officer (and placate his conscience he’s artistic really, you see)-the gardenscape in all its contemporary inappropriateness- crazy-paving, dry-stone walls, triangles of lawn and idiot chains. The lowest ebb of the great English tradition of gardening. This means that we can get no further help from the scientificattitude and that we must therefore turn to other values and otherstandards.