The mixture of different types of route within a town, and
the way they connect up with each other and to the public
squares, expresses the very essence of urban character.
Not only is the spatial experience of using them enhanced
by their variety and complexity (explore, for example, the
Rows in Brighton), but you will often find that key routes
have landmarks such as important buildings. These points
of punctuation help city dwellers to find their way around
and to relate one set of routes to another.
Landmarks along routes come in many forms, from
a distinctive ‘event’ such as a decorated pub jutting
into the space, to an oriel window overlooking a change of
direction, or a lofty church spire. One can search out
these ‘highlighting’ features and describe them through
the sketchbook. Many major routes through a town
are deliberately punctuated by a well-placed statue or
public building, but the lesser routes are often
accidentally landmarked. Hence a hierarchy of landmarks
may exist, each tailored to the scale of the route and its
civic status.
If you are intent upon sketching a route, it is important
to allow the drawing to focus upon or acknowledge a
point of punctuation. Although the sketch may be
concerned with the nature of a street or road, the fact that
it has a landmark along it that provides local interest
should not be overlooked. With long routes the points of
punctuation allow us not only to measure how far we
have travelled, but to experience the process of
movement. On an urban motorway tall or distinctive
structures may provide distance markers, and the same is
true on a pedestrian-scale alleyway.
Our route along a street can be intentionally
punctuated by such features as a clock mounted on a
bracket above our heads, or by a colonnaded entrance
jutting into the pavement. Such manipulation of our
perception by well-placed markers was normally reserved
for public architecture, but today it is common to find
12.2
Access lanes (as here in Siena) are often tortuous routes that have grown up
from ancient cart tracks. In this sketch the buildings overshadow the lane, which
provides no space for gatherings of any description.Streets, lanes and footpaths 101