2011-08-15

Cities - the map

I love maps. Here are some I have drawn for fun recently (and edited in photoshop).

Though none of these maps depict an existing urban location, they are each influenced by a real city somewhere the world... see if you can guess which real city goes with the drawing!



built on a marsh and named in honor
of a general with wooden teeth


most of a medieval city was demolished by
an emperor to make way for a new
metropolis with wide, radial boulevards


settled by the dutch and later the british
 hint: not in the USA


every city in italy. choose your favorite.

I have been thinking about cities a lot lately. South Africa has a bizarre history of urban planning, ranging from the beautiful mountain-oriented axial layout of Cape Town to the gridded streets of Joburg, to the hilly assemblage of homes in Durban, to the mazes created for suppressing movement and assembly of Africans in many apartheid townships across the country.

I will be blogging about cities for the next few posts - what brings them together? what breaks them apart? and what role do architects have to make them better for everyone?

The city is all right. To live in one
Is to be civilized, 
Stay up and read
Or sing and dance 
All night and see sunrise
By waiting up 
instead of getting up.
—Robert Frost, A Masque of Mercy

2 comments:

  1. 1. Washington D.C. 2. Rome 3. CapeTown 4. Florence

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  2. You got 'em all right! #2 could be Rome or any other re-gridded city along a river.

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