Kepes-Lynch

The Kepes-Lynch project is comprised of documentation created by Kevin Lynch and Gyorgy Kepes in preparation for the book "The Image of the City". The photographs that Kevin Lynch and Gyorgy Kepes took of the streets of the city of Boston in the 1960s, along with the field notes taken while doing the project document the process they used to gather information from people on the street about their impressions of city streets and the environment the streets create. The photographs illustrate people in the environment at a particular time; the field notes document the process of the project.

Goals:

The goals are to make available and accessible the photographs and written documentation about the project to document the city of Boston in the 1960s. We want to serve the photographs up as jpegs, at ca. 1500 ppi and thumbnail images for reference in the search process. We want to serve the written content as PDF page images. One document that is 5 pages can be one file, and not five different files. The Kepes-Lynch collection should be presented as its own collection within DOME, with the availability to search across this collection and others. Each digital object should be able to stand alone, so that in the future it may be reused for other exhibits, while still maintaining a relationship with the other objects being digitized from the Kevin Lynch collection or the Kepes-Lynch Photograph Collection. We want user to be able to search the collection, and browse the collection by format (documents, drawings, photographs), or by subject (project documents, pilot test, areas of the city, office interviews, asking directions, etc.) Each subject will include related documents, transcripts, drawings, and photographs. Objects may fit into more than one category. When an item is selected, a pdf of the scanned documents will come up and there will be links (or thumbnails) to additional related materials (maps, photographs, and documentation about the project).

Content:

The Kepes-Lynch collection is a group of photographs and field notes that document Boston in the 1950s and 1960s prior to urban renewal. Gyorgy Kepes and Kevin Lynch worked together to document neighborhoods in Boston, providing a moment in the life of the city of Boston, during a time when the concept of urban renewal was at its height in city planning. The field notes in the Institute Archives describe the early steps of the project; progress reports and plans; plans and instructions for field interviews; field interviews and summaries; direction inquiries and accompanying report; and maps that describe the results of the field interviews. Together, this constitutes a primary source collection that describe methodology in city planning thinking by a major urban planner who was affiliated with MIT.