Concise Townscape

This book has changed my life as it relates to the "gambits" of making an inventive street work. Other books cover enclosure and ending the street with a focul point. This book goes into so much more depth. The challenge for me is to take these largely urban ideas and apply them to a suburban environment (where I do my work) but that isn't Cullen's fault. The qualities that go into a good street will probably never change. Cullen catologed them for us here 40 or 50 years ago and these ideas, the fundementals, will never change.

fresh and new state, but a very bad print: the copies of the images and photographs are of a very bad quality compared with the original print.

I refer to this book constantly while designing.

If Gordon Cullen's book 'The Concise Townscape' were required reading for anyone entering an architectural education, the level of discourse on design would skyrocket. Cullen puts to words and images some of the more intangible qualities of space that nevertheless affect how we view our surroundings. It is, in my opinion, a categorization of experiences... discussing things like 'serial vision' (the progression of visual experience as one moves along a path) 'outdoor room and indoor landscape', 'looking into enclosure', 'viscosity', etc. etc. This book is more than a dictionary or thesaurus of spatial terms, however. It is primarily a book on experience- getting to the heart of how a space actually feels; how it is occupied, how it CAN be occupied, and what are the qualities that make it that way. If read for what it truly is, it renders the current fashion of architectural pornography rather silly.And this, my friend, is where its true strength in Academia comes into play. Sexy renderings only take one so far, but your design professor has most likely read this book. Understanding Cullen's work will bring the discourse up, and move your work beyond a visual one-liner.But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

Too concise. Had to get copies of pictures left out from previous copy.Dorothy Ramsay

Simply, as the title says. There is no question. If you study architecture or city planning, this book is one of the most essential books you can buy and read thoroughly. It gives such a nice overview over how to create a townscape that works well for the pedestrian.

Have heard a lot about this book, and it did'nt disappoint. Talks about the lost art of place-making. A must read for every architect and planner. Think the world would be a better place....

It is great book, it gives plenty of idea and how to analyse a city,

thats a basic text book about cities and places ... must have

Un clásico del movimiento inglés a favor del denominado Townscape, que tuvo su origen en las páginas de la revista The Architectural Review en los años cuarenta y cincuenta. Los dibujos de Gordon Cullen son magníficos, y sus análisis siguen revelándonos muchos detalles que el urbanismo contemporáneo se ha olvidado en sus diseños. Un libro que nos eneseña a ver, a disfrutar de la escena urbana. La edición inglesa actual, del año 1971, es una versión reducida del libro original publicado en 1961 (en el que se han omitido Los Town Studies, y las Proposal (páginas 193 a 313). La edición en castellano de Editorial Blume es de 1974, y corresponde a la edición inglesa del The Concise Townscape, incomprensiblemente se dejó de editar en 1981, tras cinco ediciones, a pesar de que sigue siendo un libro recomendado en los estudios de Arquitectura y Urbanismo.