E1UD 04: CONCEPTS OF GORDON CULLEN

Ar. Ravindra Patnayaka,

B.Arch, M.Tech.,[Planning], PGDESM, (PGDDM)
Assistant Professor,
GITAM SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, Visakhapatnam.
 Gordon Cullen

• (9 August 1914 - 11 August 1994)

was an influential
English architect and urban
designer who was a key motivator
in Townscape movement.

• Best known for the book

The Concise Townscape, first
published in 1961, proving to be
one of the most popular books on
Urban Design in the 20th Century.
 Content concerned with the intrinsic quality of the various subdivisions of the
environment, and start with the great landscape categories of metropolis, town, arcadia,
park, industrial, arable and wild nature.
Community Parks

Arcadia

Arable Land in Urban Areas

Urban Farming Urban Forestry

Content concerned with the intrinsic quality of the various subdivisions of the
environment, and start with the great landscape categories of metropolis, town, arcadia,
park, industrial, arable and wild nature.
Place description is in a world of black and white.
The roads are for movement and the buildings for social and
business purposes.
If the buildings are put in a group and so that one can get inside the group.. The space created
in between the buildings seems to have life of its own!!!!!
 PHILOSOPHY

“Group of buildings can collectively give visual pleasure which none can give
separately. One building standing alone in the countryside is experienced as a
work of architecture, but bring a half dozen buildings together and an art other
than architecture is made possible.

Several things begin to happen in the group, which would be impossible for the
isolated building.

We may walk through and pass the buildings, and as a corner is turned an
unsuspected building is suddenly revealed. We may be surprised, even astonished
with a reaction generated by the composition of the group and not by the
individual building.”

- Gordon Cullen
 PRINCIPLES

CONCERNING OPTICS

Serial vision
Existing view and the emerging view
Focal point

CONCERNING PLACE
Closer and enclosure
Here and there

CONCERNING CONTENT

Existing fabric
Space and infinity
CONCERNING OPTICS
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Serial Vision

SERIAL VISION

Serial vision is a significant element in the cognitive and affective experience of

the perception of a place. The visual perception of a pedestrian while walking in
an urban setting at uniform speed results in the sequence of revelations of sudden
contrasts in surrounding envelope of townscape, and certain snapshots that shall
be unfolded at every hierarchical instantaneous view frame in the journey, have a
potential of becoming a series of image making impressions on the perceiver’s
mind.
CONCERNING OPTICS
Serial Vision
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Serial Vision

The even progress of travel is

illuminated by a series of sudden
contrasts and so an impact is made
on the eye, bringing the plan to life .
Note that the slightest deviation in
alignment and quite small variations
in projections or setbacks on plan
have a disproportionally powerful
effect in the third dimension.
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Serial Vision

Taj Mahal’s Serial Vision

 CONCERNING OPTICS
Existing view and the emerging view

EXISTING VIEW AND THE EMERGING VIEW

“The visualization and creation of designer in the articulation of solids and voids in
devising walkable settlements can create the excitement in the journey of a visitor
in an urban setting.

A continuous long street with a certain character might result in boredom, but
creation of courtyards, squares, plazas, piazzas, emphasizing nodes etc., increases
the emotional sensitivity of the user. Finally a suddenly revealed monument or an
element adds surprise to the visitor.”
Existing View and Emerging View!!!
A long road becomes monotonous.
Courtyard / Square increases the emotional sensitivity.
Any monument (Suddenly Revealed) certainly adds exclamation / surprise.
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Existing view and the emerging view
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Existing view and the emerging view
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Existing view and the emerging view
 CONCERNING OPTICS
Focal point

FOCAL POINT

“The visualization and creation of the designer lies in the optimum utilization and
articulation of solids or voids in designing a central point of attention or interest
or activity that acts as a landmark amidst the cityscape. Few of these focal
points include entrance pavilions, sculptures, landscape features, tactile paving,
Braille information boards, etc. that offer visual cues for the respective
pedestrians, bikers, specially-abled users to orient themselves into the pathway.”
Focal Point Focal point is the idea of the town as a place of assembly, of social
intercourse, of meeting, was taken for granted throughout the whole of human
civilization up to the twentieth century.
CONCERNING PLACE
 CONCERNING PLACE
Closer and enclosure

CLOSER AND ENCLOSURE

“Closure is the breakdown of a continuous system of elements i.e. pathways,

street network, etc. within a town into a more edible and ordered
composition without perturbing the onward procession.

The concealed life of private spaces created in between the built structures is
paused without lessening the continuity of advancement beyond the
obstruction. Closure is a mere play of shutting down a city’s environment
creating a deviation to cityscape. Enclosure furnishes a complete secluded
environment that is concentric, still and self-sufficient.

A person feels that he is completely encircled with similar elements on

procession through regression until a new aspect of design is disclosed that
creates an abrupt surprise.”
CONCERNING PLACE
Closer and enclosure
 1

Full Enclosure
450 (1:1)

Threshold of Enclosure Minimum Enclosure Loss Enclosure

300 (1:2) 180 (1:3) 140 (1:4)
 Exposure - Enclosure

Reactions to the position of body and mind with its mere environment !!!
“We are Exposed to” / “We are Within”

This experience in its extreme sensitivity and improper design approach shall lead to
Agoraphobia, Acrophobia, claustrophobia!!!!!
 CONCERNING PLACE
Here and There

HERE AND THERE

“The practical result of so articulating the town into identifiable parts is that no
sooner do we create a HERE than we have to admit a THERE, and it is precisely in the
manipulation of these two spatial concepts that a large part of urban drama
arises.”
CONCERNING PLACE
Here and There
Rasthrapathi Bhavan
HERE & THERE
CONCERNING CONTENT
 CONCERNING CONTENT
Existing fabric

EXISTING FABRIC

“The human mind sensitively reacts to the surrounding environment when it perceives
two images of vivid contrast (the street and Courtyard) simultaneously. The sense of
space becomes more meaningful with the created drama of juxtaposition.
Variation observed in spatial configuration, form, texture, color, etc. plays an important
role.”
CONCERNING OPTICS
Existing Fabric
Existing Fabric: Building Material
 Existing Fabric: Color, Texture

Jodpur, India
 Temple/ Monument/ Church alone shows its grandeur.
The Same amongst the buildings/small houses ,Towers!!!!
 CONCERNING CONTENT
Space and Infinity

SPACE AND INFINITY

“The infiniteness of the sky cannot be felt as one observes a clear sky from rooftops or
open grounds, as effective as a dramatic visual sense of infiniteness in the sky that
can be felt by a human brain as one perceives while walking, or looking sky in the
backdrop of a building or a part of it.”
 Space and Infinity

Jaisalmer,
Jaisalmer,India
India
Deflection. Where a view is terminated by a building at right angles to the axis then the
enclosed space is complete. But a change of angle in the terminal building, as here in
Edinburgh, creates a secondary space by implication. A space which you cannot see but
feel must be there, facing the building.
 Dramatic Design

Device of Containment (Street) Vs Revelation (Cantilever)

The Fact of Height is dramatized and made it real by designing a cantilevered balcony