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 British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library On his return to London in 1946 Cullen joined the staff of the Architectural Review where, as Assistant Editor, he became a prominent commentator on post-war development and architecture. In 1947 he published a pioneering pedestrianized proposal for Parliament Square, ‘Westminster regained’ and he also produced a special edition of the Architectural Review in 1955. In writing an introduction to this edition of Townscape I find little toalter in the attitude expressed in the original introduction written tenyears ago. Concerning PLACE. This second point is concerned with ourreactions to the position of our body in its environment. This is as simpleas it appears to be. It means, for instance, that when you go into a roomyou utter to yourself the unspoken words 'I am outside IT, I am enteringIT, I am in the middle of IT' . At this level of consciousness we are dealingwith a range of experience stemming from the major impacts of exposureand enclosure (which if taken to their morbid extremes result in the

Cullen promoted an approach to civic design that led to his book Townscape published in 1961. Translated into several languages and re-titled The Concise Townscape, it has become a standard text for urban development. hidden by the ramp; only its upper part is visible. This effect of trunca­tion serves to isolate and make remote. The building is withheld. We areHere and it is There. As we climb the ramp the Rashtrapathi Bhawan is There is a further observation to be made concerning Serial Vision.Although from a scientific or commercial point of view the town may bea unity, from our optical viewpoint we have split it into two elements:the existing view and the emerging view. In the normal way this is anaccidental chain of events and whatever significance may arise out of thelinking of views will be fortuitous. Suppose, however, that we take overthis linking as a branch of the art of relationship; then we are finding atool with which human imagination can begin to mould the city into acoherent drama. The process of manipulation has begun to turn theblind facts into a taut emotional situation. Gordon was a key member of a dominant circle of architects, journalists, historians and poets who formed architectural opinion in post-war Britain. His contribution was to develop an eye for seeing the obvious, but invariably overlooked, architectural qualities in British town and cities. Cullen lived in the small village of Wraysbury (Berkshire) from 1958 until his death, aged 80, on 11 August 1994, following a serious stroke. After his passing, David Gosling and Norman Foster collected various examples of his work and put them together in the book "Visions of Urban Design".Or, to continue the interplay, Thisand That can co-exist. Ever sincepeople got really serious about plan­ning one of the main endeavours hasbeen to put people into sunny,healthy homes away from dirty,smelly and noisy industry. Whilst noone will seriously quarrel with this,the principle of segregation and zoninggoes marching on, with the resultthat we are in danger of losing thegreat unities of social living. TheWest End gets more and more officesto the exelusion of theatres and public, not democratically but emotionally. As the great Max Milleronce remarked across the footlights on a dull evening 'I know you're outthere, I can hear you breathing'.

to be expensive and exclusive, then this should deter­mine the character of Grosvenor Square in itsrenascent public form. The presence of the AmericanEmbassy, together with the square's wartime associa­tions as moral G.H.Q. of American troops in Eng­land, has prompted the authorities to make of it amemorial to President Roosevelt, a scheme whichhas had wide public support. Why not make Gros­venor Square a real American Corner? Not theAmerica associated in the eyes of Europeans withvulgarization; the connection is with Fifth Avenuerather than Broadway. The best American food,exclusive underground cinema, swans and fountains(but not a soda fountain). On great occasions theAmerican Embassy could hold garden parties in thesquare. A corner of London that is America for bothLondoners and Americans. Through numerous case studies of the streets and publics spaces of places such as Shepton Mallet and Basildon, and including Liverpool Cathedral precinct and a re-imagined London Bankside, Cullen explores the ‘art of relationship’: ‘Bring people together and they create a collective surplus of enjoyment; bring buildings together and they can give visual pleasure which none can give separately’. Cullen advocated an artistic approach to using environmental ‘elements’ including buildings, trees, water, traffic, advertisements and so on, each of which was to be woven together in such a way that drama was released.

work for its examples instead of these being culled from the past. Thishas not been done for two reasons. These examples show the seafrontat Hove turned into a mural, and anItalian allegorical scene in which thecaptured ships underline the point.

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, the outdoor room and enclosureIn this section of the casebook weare concerned with the person's senseof position, his unspoken reaction tothe environment which might beexpressed as 'I am in IT or above ITor below IT, I am outside IT, I amenclosed or I am exposed'. These Buildings, rich in texture and colour,stand on the floor. If the floor is asmooth and flat expanse of greyishtarmac then the buildings will re­main separate because the floor failsto intrigue the eye in the same waythat the buildings do. One of themost powerful agents for unifyingand joining the town is the floor, asthese two pictures so effectivelydemonstrate. According to Gordon Cullen, the layout of the city’s structures, including its streets, trees, and other natural elements, is known as Townscape. One approach to identifying a city’s physical shape using physical images is through the Townscape. The layout of the buildings and roads, which elicits a range of emotions in the viewer, may also be used to identify a townscape. The townscape idea is a foundation for architects, planners, and anyone concerned with the city’s appearance. The structure’s shape and mass impact and affect the physical form of urban space. The relationship between the physical condition of the urban environment and the body of the building mass is sensed by the spectator on a psychological and physical level. Additionally, the link between urban space’s size, form, and configuration and a city’s quality may be observed aesthetically.The new rules of the emerging consumer economy radically reconfigured both the discourse and practice of architecture during the postwar era. Architecture became a commodity whose products were sold through mass media to mass audiences, via images that performed as advertising. In this world, image makers, rather than theorists, stood at the forefront of the architectural production, performing as "visual marketers." Thomas Gordon Cullen (1914-1994), the subject of this dissertation and one of the best-known twentieth-century architectural draftsmen to emerge from Britain, flourished during this visual consumerist push. Cullen gained widespread acclaim in the 1960s and 1970s following the publication of his book Townscape (1961) and its abbreviated edition, The Concise Townscape (1971). Not quite so brazenly cheeky asillusion is the Metaphor which onlyhints that This is That, but there isgreat scope here for the power ofsuggestion. In the three examplesshown on this opening the standardof suggestion and its aptness is notvery penetrating, I'm afraid, but atleast they convey the idea that theartillery shells surrounding a warmemorial might have been bollards,that a huge circular structure when grandiose vistaOf the gambits used to exploit Hereand There the vista is, of course, oneof the most popular. The Grandiosevista does just what the whitewashedwall did in Scotland, p. 34, but in itsown expensive way. It links you, inthe foreground at Versailles, to theremote landscape, thus producing asense of power or omnipresence. Over the last five years, the work we have done on the collection has significantly increased its accessibility.We have embedded the collection into teaching on the University of Westminster’s MArch and BA Designing Cities degrees.We have also facilitated use of the collection by other institutions and are always keen to encourage researchers to access the collection. Coupled with enclosure (the hOllowobject) as an artifact of possession, isthe focal point, the vertical symbol ofcongregation. In the fertile streetsand market places of town and villageit is the focal point (be it column orcross) which crystallizes the situation,which confirms 'this is the Spot'.'Stop looking, it is here.' This mag­nificent clarity illuminates many acommunity but in many others thechief function of the focal point hasbeen stripped away l:.y the swirl andhazards of traffic so that it becomesmerely an indifferent piece for theantiquarian's notebook.