Readable City

Abstract

“Reading the city” is so commonplace a metaphor that we tend not to see or hear it as such: It is an indifferent building in the lexicographical landscape, something we see and pass by every day without giving it a second look. Geographers, sociologists, and architects, as well as literary critics, all speak of—and write about, and design courses on—the “legibility” of the city, usually taking the phrase for granted, taking “reading” as read. But why should it seem so obvious to speak of reading in relation to urban experience? (Or, putting this from another direction, why does “reading the village” sound like a contradiction in terms?) And what kind of reading is being evoked when we go about “reading” the city?