The city is complex, multi-faceted and fascinating. The same can be said about the rooms
of the city. The experience of the rooms of the city can be described in as many ways as
there are individuals. The question concerned in this essay is How can you describe the
rooms of the city as a phenomenon and how can you describe the experience of these rooms
in general?
The concepts city and room are widely understood and neither of them has a description
that can be used in all situations. Different time periods in history have had different
defi nitions and different thinkers and philosophers have theirs. A changing context have
given these words different meaning. The same can be said about the experience of the
rooms of the city and the description of this experience. In different situations, different
descriptions, explanations and analyses must be used.
This essay will not present a way to describe a specifi c city room, but will examine the
rooms of the city in general and the city as a phenomenon. The architect Inger Bergström
believes that you can look at experiences on three levels. The top-level looks at how the
species experience and focuses on our mutual experiences through our genes. Next level is
the group level where you can compare experiences in a group of people. The lowest level
focuses on the individual experience. These experiences are based on a persons previous
experiences. Bergström means that it is what we experience on the level of the species,
and to a certain extent on group level, that is interesting in the profession of a landscape
architect. Further, she believes, like the phenomenological architect Christian
Norberg-Schulz, that it is possible to describe the common experience in general terms.
It is the highest, common level of experiences that is the base of Kevin Lynch´s description
of the city from a point of legibility and orientation. Along with a description of
Lynch´s way to describe the rooms of the city, other ways to describe the city rooms and
the experience of them will be presented, both general experiences and individual ones.
Fiction in literature offers a language with metaphors and atmospheres that leads to an
understanding of experiences on an emotional level. In art we fi nd a...
